HENRY  DEXTER 


HENRY   DEXTER 

Sculptor 
A  MEMORIAL 

BY 

JOHN   ALBEE 


PEIVATELY  FEINTED 

1898 


Copyright,  1898, 
BY  JOHN  ALBEE. 


•        •     •         «         . c  .*. 

•  •••      >*••••*•*•        •      • 

•'••••  :•'.•  .*::,:  •• ; ..: /.'• ._.: 


SEntbmttg 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 7 

BOYHOOD  —  APPRENTICESHIP 11 

THE  PORTRAIT-PAINTER 45 

THE  SCULPTOR 51 

His  VIEWS  OF  ART 70 

THE  CLOSING  YEARS 105 

CATALOGUE  OF  WORKS      ...  Ill 


£135364 


INTRODUCTION 
* 

THERE  are  ample  materials  in  my  hands  for  illustrat- 
ing the  career  of  Henry  Dexter  from  his  childhood 
to  his  death ;  and  as  I  propose  to  let  him  be  his  own  biog- 
rapher wherever  possible,  I  will  once  for  all  enumerate 
the  sources  from  which  this  memorial  is  composed.  For 
the  first  thirty  years  of  his  life  there  is  a  full  autobiography 
of  two  hundred  and  five  closely  written  quarto  pages ;  and 
for  the  remainder  of  his  life  there  is  a  variety  of  miscella- 
neous information  contained  in  his  own  letters  and  diaries, 
in  the  public  notices  of  the  painter  and  sculptor  (for  he  was 
both),  and  in  the  recollections  of  his  family  and  friends. 
As  I  was  myself  one  of  the  latter,  and  at  the  ever-memorable 
period  of  impressionable  youth  when  art  and  artists  and 
poetry  were  all  the  world  that  had  any  interest  for  me,  I 
shall  have  a  twofold  pleasure  in  writing  of  a  man  whom 
I  admired  and  loved,  and  at  the  same  time  recovering  the 
free  and  aspiring  period  of  my  intimacy  with  him. 

But  I  have  not  completed  the  inventory  of  resources  for 
this  memorial,  those  which  made  the  closest  bond  between 
us,  but  which  unfortunately  are  for  the  most  part  in  such 
an  unfinished  state  that  I  shall  be  unable  to  use  them 
directly.  These  are  many  hundred  pages  of  metaphysical 


8  INTRODUCTION 

speculations,  observations  on  modern  science  and  its 
meaning,  and  a  considerable  volume  of  poetry,  most  of 
which  has  never  been  printed.  These  precious  pages  con- 
tain the  record  of  his  hidden  life,  of  his  deepest  mind ;  and 
though  I  shall  not  be  able  to  introduce  them  bodily  into 
this  narrative,  I  trust  their  light  will  incidentally  shine 
through  it,  revealing,  as  mere  outward  events  cannot,  the 
real  and  most  inward  spirit  of  the  man.  Artists  are  sel- 
dom only  artists;  they  are  also  philosophers,  inventors, 
writers,  and  nearly  always  poets.  These  are  their  holiday 
guises  between  orders,  or  when  the  arm  and  the  eye  are 
weary.  Mr.  Dexter  wrote  almost  as  much  as  he  wrought 
with  chisel.  But  curiously  enough  in  one  who  had  been 
an  extraordinarily  skilful  artisan  from  his  earliest  years, 
and  before  he  was  an  artist,  he  lacked  the  constructive 
literary  faculty.  Form,  which  he  commanded  out  of  a 
block  of  marble,  he  could  not  so  well  command  on  paper 
and  with  pen. 

We  had  not  been  long  acquainted  when  I  discovered 
that  his  portfolio  was  full  of  verses.  He  was  so  much  my 
senior  that  it  was  with  great  trepidation  that  I  ventured 
to  confide  to  him  my  own  attempts  in  the  same  kind. 
Thereafter — what  shall  I  say?  —  we  inscribed  poems  to 
each  other,  and  some  of  them  were  printed  in  the  local 
Cambridge  newspaper.  What  they  meant  was  probably 
an  enigma  to  readers,  if  there  were  any ;  but  that  mattered 
not  at  all  to  us.  We  read  them,  and  carried  under  our 
cloaks  the  delightful  and  sacred  mystery.  Thus  his  inner 
nature  and  aspiration  became  known  to  me ;  and  though, 
as  I  have  said,  he  was  much  my  senior  and  had  long  before 
made  his  place  in  the  world,  he  was  really  much  younger 


INTRODUCTION  9 

in  feeling  than  I,  overburdened  with  youth's  melancholy, 
ambitions  and  hesitations.  He  had  passed  through  the 
same  experiences,  and  was  at  the  time  in  the  serene  and 
confident  period  of  his  life,  when  he  could  look  backward 
with  satisfaction  and  hopefully  forward.  He  had  con- 
quered his  way,  every  step  of  which  had  been  a  battle  with 
circumstances  as  untoward  as  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  New 
England  boy,  yet  there  was  throughout  one  propitious 
omen :  he  had  always  been  conscious  of  what  he  wanted  to 
do  and  to  be ;  never  lost  sight  of  it,  never  forfeited  it  by 
trifling  with  fortune,  was  never  much  tempted  to  escape 
into  an  easier  path  for  the  attainment  of  worldly  comforts 
and  the  soft  bed  that  money  makes.  He  wanted  to  be  an 
artist  before  he  had  ever  seen  a  picture  or  a  statue.  Some 
undefined  and  unaccountable  impulse  drew  him  that  way, 
and  when  for  the  first  time  he  chanced  to  see  a  painting,  his 
whole  nature  and  inclination  were  in  a  flash  revealed  and 
explained  to  him.  Thenceforth  he  had  only  to  struggle 
into  the  fulness  of  that  light  which  had  been  shown  to  him; 
a  long,  arduous  way  yet  to  go,  but  one  from  which  he  never 
flinched.  At  the  period  when  I  knew  him  the  struggle 
was  over,  as  nearly  as  may  be  with  artists  and  poets. 
Art  and  poetry  are  mansions  of  many  rooms ;  once  admitted, 
their  votaries  are  still  trying  new  doors,  with  longings  not 
exactly  like  their  early  struggles,  yet  never  letting  them 
rest.  At  this  time,  also,  Mr.  Dexter,  who  was  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  current  problems  of  science  and  religion,  had 
outlined  certain  theories  in  regard  to  the  evolution  of  mat- 
ter and  spirit,  their  relation,  their  history  and  destiny, 
which  very  well  contented  him.  In  short,  he  was  then  at 
peace  with  himself,  and  thought  that  he  had  penetrated  as  far 


10  INTRODUCTION 

into  the  mystery  of  creation  as  was  permitted  to  man.  He 
was  cheerful  and  even  playful  at  this  time,  as  many  of  his 
letters  and  verses  testify. 

I  thought,  therefore,  that  it  was  best  to  begin  the  annals 
of  his  life  from  this  eminence  where  I  first  knew  him  inti- 
mately and  had  the  most  distinct  impressions  of  the  man  ; 
and  with  this  lamp  recover  the  previous  years,  some  fifty 
in  number,  and  by  the  same  light  the  remaining  twenty. 

This  narrative  will  begin  at  his  birth  and  trace  his 
history,  keeping  close  to  his  own  manuscript,  for  thirty 
years.  I  regret  that  the  limits  of  this  book  will  not 
allow  the  printing  of  his  autobiography  in  full;  but  it 
must  necessarily  be  condensed  to  make  room  for  other 
important  periods  of  his  life.  I  regret  it  the  more  because 
his  own  narrative  is  his  best  piece  of  writing,  flowing  on  in 
a  leisurely,  natural  manner,  and  because  also  it  is  one  of 
the  most  vivid  and  picturesque  descriptions  of  the  customs, 
ideas  and  oddities  of  country  communities  in  New  York 
and  New  England  during  the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  with  which  I  am  acquainted.  But  I  hope  to  be 
able  to  introduce  enough  to  show  the  flavor  of  his  account, 
and  to  illustrate  out  of  what  soil  he  grew,  amid  what  seem- 
ing obstructions  and  narrowest  world  this  boy  of  genius 
felt  the  intimations  of  his  destiny  and  his  life's  work. 


MEMOIR 

* 
i 

BOYHOOD — APPRENTICESHIP 

HENRY  DEXTER  was  born,  October  11, 1806,  in  the 
town  of  Nelson,  Madison  County,  New  York,  the 
third  of  five  children.  His  descent  has  been  traced  back 
through  eight  generations  to  the  Rev.  Gregory  Dexter,  of 
Olney,  Northampton  County,  England,  born  1610.  This 
Gregory  Dexter  was  first  a  printer  and  stationer  in  London ; 
an  adherent  and  transatlantic  correspondent  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams. He  printed  for  Roger  Williams,  in  1643,  a  dictionary 
of  the  Indian  language  as  spoken  in  New  England.  In 
1644  he  accompanied  Williams  on  one  of  his  return  trips  to 
Providence,  where  he  became  a  regular  preacher  among  the 
Baptists,  baptizing  many  people  in  the  Providence  Jordan, 
otherwise  called  the  Mooshassick.  Let  us  think  of  him 
rather  as  the  first  educated  printer  in  the  country,  often 
called  to  Boston  and  Cambridge  to  assist  in  setting  up  mat- 
ter too  difficult  for  the  local  journeymen,  and  as  the  printer 
of  the  first  Rhode  Island  almanac.  He  and  all  his  descend- 
ants lived  in  and  around  Providence  up  to  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  they  began  to  disperse,  —  some 
going  as  far  west  as  Connecticut  and  even  New  York; 
others  to  the  far  south,  to  North  Carolina  and  Alabama. 


12  HENRY  DEXTER 

The  father  of  our  Henry  went  to  New  York  in  1805  to 
better  his  fortune,  in  which  attempt  he  failed  after  various 
efforts  at  farming,  shoemaking  and  tanning.  From  the 
time  of  this  removal  to  New  York  the  family  history  is  not 
pleasant  to  read.  It  is  a  record  of  trials  in  which  the 
mother  and  her  children  appear  to  have  been  the  chief 
sufferers.  Not  a  vestige  remains  of  their  humble  home, 
though  twice  built,  and  even  the  site  of  it  is  known  only 
through  tradition.  So  I  will  not  attempt  its  discovery 
nor  uncover  its  pathetic  annals,  but  confine  myself  to  such 
memories  of  the  child  Henry  as  are  most  significant  and 
entertaining.  These  memories  date  from  the  time  when 
he  was  a  child  in  arms,  —  which  I  can  well  believe,  for 
he  was  one  of  the  most  sensitive  men  I  ever  knew.  Noth- 
ing escaped  his  acute  senses,  and  his  memory  had  not  been 
overlaid  by  book  training.  In  his  autobiography  he  thus 
beautifully  begins  the  story  of  his  first  conscious  awaken- 
ing to  the  objective  world :  "  The  commencement  of  life's 
career  is  such  an  every-day  occurrence  that  it  seems  nothing 
to  speak  of ;  but  the  train  of  associations  that  converge  to 
this  little  point  are  as  the  strings  of  the  harp  to  the  point 
to  which  they  are  gathered,  —  they  are  touched  and  they 
sound.  Circumstances  play  upon  them,  and  we  feel  the 
vibrations  in  the  soul." 

He  even  thought  that  he  had  an  ante-natal  memory  of 
one  small  household  occurrence.  But  as  his  mother  dis- 
puted the  possibility  of  such  a  thing,  he  does  not  insist 
upon  it.  His  father  had  found  a  quantity  of  wild  honey 
in  the  forest  some  little  while  before  his  birth,  and  Henry 
thought  he  remembered  seeing  the  five  brass  kitchen  ket- 
tles filled  with  it  and  tasting  it.  What  an  omen  had  he 


A  MEMOIR  13 

been  born  to  be  a  poet !  At  any  rate,  it  is  a  poor  child- 
hood about  which  some  mist  or  myth  does  not  gather. 
He  did  remember  beyond  dispute  the  cutting  of  the  string 
under  his  tongue,  being  born  tongue-tied.  This  must 
have  been  in  the  first  or  second  year  of  his  babyhood. 
Such  trifles  as  being  carried  in  his  father's  arms  to  the 
cornfield  where  crows  were  thieving  the  newly  planted 
kernels,  or  stepping  on  a  hot  shovel  and  being  comforted 
in  somebody's  arms,  seeing  his  mother  milk  the  cow  in 
winter  and  observing  icicles  hanging  from  the  under  lip 
of  the  cow,  sitting  in  his  father's  lap  and  noticing  how 
much  larger  his  father's  hand  was  than  his  own  and  won- 
dering when  he  should  have  more  ringers  and  thumbs, 
supposing  those  made  the  difference  in  size,  —  these  and 
numerous  other  insignificant  incidents  made  up  the  gossa- 
mer threads  of  his  dawn  of  life,  which  later  and  more 
eventful  years  never  dissipated,  but  rather  bound  together 
and  made  brighter  and  stronger.  Even  childhood's  griefs 
become  tinged  in  the  memory  of  them  with  something 
akin  to  pleasure.  We  make  poetry  of  past  sufferings,  and 
write  of  them  in  the  same  chapter  and  with  equal  delight 
as  our  past  joys.  Country  life  is  full  of  events  to  chil- 
dren, and  the  boy  Henry  was  astonished  by  soldiers  uni- 
formed in  red  coats  passing  the  house  to  the  muster-field ; 
excited  to  the  highest  pitch  when  the  family  moved  into 
a  new  house,  and  greatly  confused  by  a  funeral  and  the 
sight  of  the  dead  neighbor,  whose  face  he  was  lifted  up 
to  see.  It  was  not  too  late  to  see  frequent  parties  of 
painted  Indians  about  that  part  of  New  York,  and  Henry's 
father  kept  his  gun  loaded  in  fear  of  night  attacks. 

The  date   of  his  first  schooling  is  not  given,  but  he 


14  HENRY   DEXTER 

records  that  he  learned  three  letters  the  first  day  and 
received  from  his  teacher  "  a  ticket  of  merit."  For  the 
remainder  of  that  day  at  school  he  amused  himself  with 
marking  on  white  paper  with  a  carpenter's  plummet  of 
lead.  This  was  before  the  day  of  the  spirit-level,  and  the 
lead  plummet,  in  shape  like  a  top,  was  in  use  for  getting  a 
perpendicular  or  plumb  line ;  hence  the  name.  It  was  also 
before  the  day  of  lead-pencils,  which  were  perfected  in 
this  country  in  1823  by  the  father  of  Henry  D.  Thoreau. 
Having  learned  his  letters,  the  mystery  of  words  next  con- 
fronted him.  He  mentions  one,  "pews,"  which  puzzled 
him,  never  having  been  in  a  meeting-house.  He  was  much 
troubled  when  his  sister  told  him  it  was  wicked  not  to 
stand  up  when  one  day  an  itinerant  minister  asked  a 
blessing  at  his  father's  table ;  and  in  contrast  he  mentions 
that  nothing  in  all  his  life  gave  him  such  delight  as  when 
he  heard  a  negro  play  the  fiddle;  thereupon  he  set  to 
work  to  make  a  fiddle,  and  in  three  days  he  succeeded. 
But  to  play  upon  it  was  thought  to  be  sinful.  At  this 
period  of  his  childhood  he  saw  his  first  apple,  and  told 
his  first  lie,  which  cost  him  a  whipping  and  cured  him 
forever,  he  avers.  Poor  boy !  he  saw  a  knife  lying  about, 
knew  it  was  his  father's,  but  somehow  it  got  into  his 
pocket,  and  it  seemed  so  good  he  kept  it  there  several 
days,  except  when  he  found  some  place  where  he  could 
whittle  unobserved.  When  discovered,  he  had  to  invent 
several  good  round  whoppers  to  account  for  his  possession 
of  the  knife.  Nobody  but  a  New  England  country-bred 
man  knows  the  value  of  a  jackknife  to  a  boy.  We  had  no 
toys,  no  picture-books,  no  playthings  save  what  we  made, 
no  Christmas  presents;  and  a  new  pair  of  boots  once  a 


A  MEMOIR  15 

year  gave  us  more  joy  and  more  pride  than  Santa  Glaus' 
well-filled  chariot  now  brings  to  the  pampered  modern 
child.  Consequently  invention  and  observation  were  ever 
on  the  alert  to  find  something  to  play  with.  I  well  remem- 
ber what  comfort  the  red  claw  of  a  lobster  and  a  piece 
of  shiny  anthracite  coal  furnished  me  for  seven  weeks. 
In  his  sister  Ann,  two  years  older  than  himself,  Henry 
had  one  playmate  who  kept  his  life  from  entire  dreariness. 
With  her,  he  says,  the  happiest  hours  of  his  childhood  were 
spent.  His  next  allusion  to  school  days  is  at  a  time  when 
he  had  learned  to  read  a  little  and  when  Webster's  spell- 
ing-book was  the  chief  study.  In  this  he  read  sentences 
from  the  Bible  printed  at  the  top  and  bottom  of  the  pages 
of  words  which  he  could  not  understand,  and  remembered 
simply  because  they  were  mysterious.  At  length  he 
learned  to  count  as  far  as  one  hundred  and  could  recite 
the  multiplication  table.  But  school  and  books  formed 
only  a  minute  item  in  the  life  of  country  children  of  that 
time ;  they  began  very  early  to  bear  the  yoke  of  labor.  In 
his  father's  tanyard  Henry  drove  the  horse  that  turned 
the  stones  for  grinding  bark.  His  chief  early  employ- 
ments, however,  were  helping  his  mother  spin  and  weave. 
She  had  the  large  wheel  for  woollen  yarns  and  the  small 
for  flax,  and  Henry  had  to  wind  quills  and  spool  yarn 
for  many  a  web  and  woof.  His  mother  was  expert  in 
all  old-fashioned  industries,  and  was  ambitious  to  pos- 
sess her  own  sheep  and  raise  her  own  flax.  Alas,  the 
husband  said,  "Nay;  we  will  sell  the  farm,  make  shoes 
and  tan  leather,  and  fill  the  bag  with  cash."  Accordingly 
the  farm  was  sold,  with  remonstrances  and  tears  and  the 
bribe  of  a  new  cap  for  the  wife  by  the  purchaser  if  she 


16  HENRY  DEXTER 

would  sign  the  deed.  The  said  cap  remained  an  heirloom 
in  the  family  for  a  long  time.  Meanwhile  the  lad  of 
seven  was  his  mother's  assistant  and  confidant.  He  con- 
tinued to  wind  spools,  to  do  chores,  to  run  on  errands, 
and  to  have  little  time  for  play.  He  had  never  seen  a 
book  except  his  speller  and  reader,  and  perchance  a  cheap 
Bible.  At  length  he  did  become  possessed  of  a  picture- 
book,  and  in  some  way  a  few  volumes  got  into  the  house. 
Among  them  was  Chesterfield's  Letters,  which  had  at  the 
beginning  of  the  chapters  illuminated  initial  letters ;  and 
here  —  at  what  age  is  not  clear,  but  he  must  have  been  still 
a  child  —  occurs  the  first  sign  of  the  talent  with  which  he 
had  been  born.  With  a  pewter  pencil  he  tried  to  imitate 
these  letters.  For  coloring  he  gathered  pigeon  berries, 
green  and  red,  and,  expressing  the  juice,  endeavored  to 
obtain  effects  upon  his  drawing.  The  next  pictures  he 
chanced  upon  were  in  a  great  illustrated  Bible  belonging 
to  a  neighbor.  His  delight,  he  records,  knew  no  bounds ; 
and  he  mentions  those  which  particularly  impressed  him,  — 
Adam  and  Eve,  Samson  lifting  the  gates  of  Gaza,  and 
others.  But  these  were  as  nothing  in  comparison  with 
two  portraits  he  saw  hanging  in  the  best  room  of  this 
neighbor's  house.  While  looking  at  them  the  question 
came  to  him  how  such  things  could  be  done,  and  the  sigh 
rose  in  his  little  heart,  the  sigh  to  do  such  things  himself. 
Then  follows  what  he  describes  as  an  unhappy  enthusi- 
asm, hope  that  he  might,  fear  and  sorrow  lest  he  could 
not.  Surely  such  feelings  are  a  prophecy  in  a  small  boy. 
He  hastened  home  to  his  mother  and  told  her  all  he  had 
felt.  She  listened;  she  explained  to  the  child  that 
painters  must  have  a  natural  gift  and  that  he  must  not 


A  MEMOIR  17 

think  of  such  things.  The  docile  boy  heard  and  obeyed, 
and  now  found  two  ways  he  must  not  go,  —  to  the  fiddle 
and  the  picture.  To  wind  quills,  dig  potatoes,  wash  dishes, 
and  go  on  errands  was  what  he  was  made  for.  Soon 
another  forbidden  way  was  discovered.  The  family  horse 
died,  and  he  happened  to  be  alone  with  it  at  the  time.  He 
made  a  verse  upon  the  occasion,  imitating  some  phrase 
of  a  hymn,  the  only  poetry  he  had  ever  heard,  and 
confided  it  to  his  mother.  She  reprimanded  him,  tell- 
ing him  dumb  beasts  were  not  entitled  to  such  solemn 
words,  and,  moreover,  that  poets  were  always  poor  shift- 
less fellows.  Thus  his  childish  efforts  at  self-expression 
through  music,  drawing  and  poetry  were  discountenanced 
by  the  only  being  in  whom  he  wholly  trusted.  He  was 
seven  years  old  when  his  dawning  intelligence  had  mani- 
fested itself  in  such  unusual  directions  and  had  been  pre- 
maturely checked.  There  remained  one  other  passion,  not 
so  easily  thwarted,  and  in  fact  oftener  smiled  upon  by 
mothers  and  all  of  her  sex.  It  is  boy  love,  that  curious 
and  ineffectual  development  of  boyhood  which  compels 
it  to  a  propensity  for  girls  much  older  than  itself.  Henry 
had  that  common  experience,  with  its  usual  results.  But, 
alas,  his  first  loved  one,  the  daughter  of  a  tavern-keeper, 
soon  moved  away  to  another  place  called  the  Lake,  —  mys- 
terious word  that  he  had  heard,  but  whose  equivalent  he 
did  not  yet  know;  "river"  also  he  had  heard,  and  he 
knew  that  both  designated  water ;  and  as  "  river  "  was  the 
longer  word,  he  supposed  it  the  name  of  a  larger  sheet 
of  water,  yet  he  cared  less  for  it  than  Lake,  as  that  was 
where  the  loved  one  dwelt.  He  dreamed  much  of  water 
at  this  period,  water  with  no  bottom,  and  soon  found 

2 


18  HENRY  DEXTER 

that  neither  the  Lake  nor  his  love  was  bottomless.  By 
dint  of  much  coaxing  he  got  himself  carried  to  the  Lake, 
where  he  saw  not  only  that  and  a  river  for  the  first  time, 
as  well  as  a  painted  house,  but  his  love  for  the  last  time. 
He  found  another  maid  on  whom  to  bestow  his  heart ;  and 
again  it  was  the  daughter  of  a  tavern-keeper,  who  in  ear- 
lier days  was  a  superior  being  to  the  children  of  the 
farmers.  Henry's  frequenting  of  taverns  was  a  part  of 
the  rustic  education  of  his  boyhood.  There  were  not 
only  the  daughters  of  the  house,  but  assemblies  of  the 
neighbors  and  travellers ;  and  all  the  balls  and  shows 
were  held  in  the  building,  which  generally  contained 
a  hall  for  such  purposes.  There  the  boy  heard  many 
questions  discussed  while  the  disputants  heated  the  flip 
irons  which  made  the  cider  boil  and  foam ;  there  he  once 
saw  at  some  entertainment  the  representation  of  a  Sleeping 
Beauty  that  again  awoke  in  him  the  same  emotion  as  the 
portraits  on  the  wall.  The  speech  which  he  heard  at  these 
taverns  was  not  that  of  his  home,  nor  was  it  probably  very 
refined  or  guarded.  It  was  strong,  graphic,  and  perfectly 
spontaneous ;  moreover  it  was  characteristic.  Nobody 
thought  of  being  like  another,  and  individuality  was,  and 
continues  to  be,  the  chief  charm  of  country  taverns,  stores, 
and  town  meetings.  The  silent  boy  took  note  of  all  this, 
and  measured  it  by  such  lights  as  he  had. 

From  an  older  brother  he  learned  the  secrets  of  trap- 
ping, fishing,  and  shooting;  or  rather  (for  he  was  not 
much  inclined  to  these  sports),  he  became  familiar  with 
the  brooks  and  forest  ways  of  the  region.  Forests  were 
everywhere  as  yet  uncleared,  and  when  he  found  any  spot 
where  he  could  see  beyond  them,  it  appeared  to  him  that 


A  MEMOIR  19 

the  world  —  a  word  he  heard  often  and  that  perplexed  him 
much  —  must  be  there.  From  his  mother  he  heard  the 
superstitions  of  the  region.  She  herself  believed  in  them ; 
and  even  then  days  were  fixed  for  the  destruction  of 
the  world.  One  of  the  anticipated  methods  of  this  de- 
struction was  a  novelty  among  the  prophets:  the  world 
was  to  be  sunk  by  hailstones  on  a  certain  day.  All  that 
day  Mrs.  Dexter  kept  her  family  indoors.  But  Henry 
stole  out  and  hid  himself  in  an  empty  hogshead  to 
witness  the  expected  catastrophe.  His  mother  was  also 
a  great  story-teller ;  some  of  the  stories  she  related,  others 
she  sang.  Henry  liked  best  those  that  were  told  without 
the  music,  and  used  to  get  her  to  recite  the  songs,  so  that 
he  could  understand  them  better.  This  was  an  early 
example  of  his  life-long  habit  of  seeking  for  an  exact 
understanding  concerning  whatever  interested  him. 

There  came  a  time  when  he  earned  his  first  quarter  of  a 
dollar,  with  which  the  dutiful  child  bought  a  bowl  for  his 
mother ;  saw  his  first  wedding,  whose  ceremonies  did  not 
equal  his  imagination  of  them ;  saw  his  father  baptized, 
and  learned  to  walk  on  his  head !  At  nine  years  of  age 
he  began  to  be  a  little  vain,  and  wet  his  hair  to  make  it 
stand  up  straight  from  his  forehead,  after  the  fashion  of 
elder  boys  and  men,  who  used  pomatum  and  bear's  grease 
to  produce  this  extraordinary  effect.  Water  was  an  un- 
satisfactory substitute  for  pomade,  and  one  day  at  school 
the  master  added  to  his  chagrin  by  bringing  his  hand  down 
hard  on  the  hair  of  the  incipient  fop.  This  custom  among 
young  men  of  wearing  the  hair  straight  up  from  the  fore- 
head was  given  over  on  their  marriage,  when  it  was  allowed 
to  lie  flat.  This  was  the  sign  of  a  married  man,  and  the 
wearing  of  a  cap  was  the  token  of  a  married  woman. 


20  HENRY   DEXTER 

In  this,  his  ninth  or  tenth  year,  the  family  moved  again. 
Henry  began  to  have  an  inquiring  mind ;  he  was  full  of 
questions.  His  schoolmistress  had  told  him  that  Noah's 
deluge  had  caused  all  the  hills,  and  that  before  this  event 
the  earth  was  level.  He  asked  her  many  questions  about 
this ;  among  others,  how  large  the  windows  of  heaven  were 
to  let  out  so  much  water.  He  was  curious  to  know  what 
the  earth  was  made  of,  and  where  the  material  came  from. 
He  was  told  it  was  made  from  nothing.  This  troubled 
him  much,  as  he  had  never  seen  anything  made  out  of 
nothing.  It  is  interesting  to  note  here  that  these,  among 
other  questions  concerning  the  origin  of  matter,  were  the 
same  he  wrote  and  speculated  on  through  the  later  years 
of  his  life.  His  mother,  although  so  fond  of  telling 
her  children  stories,  and  those  too  of  the  most  fabulous 
and  improbable  kind,  never  permitted  them  to  read  any 
books  not  strictly  true.  Thus,  when  she  discovered  that 
one  of  her  older  boys  had  somehow  got  possession  of 
"  Gulliver's  Travels,"  and  that  Henry  was  reading  it 
secretly,  she  ordered  the  book  out  of  the  house.  Little 
there  was  in  those  days  of  family  discipline  which  does  not 
in  these  seem  queer  and  mistaken.  In  following  Henry's 
account  of  his  most  grievous  troubles  I  must  often  couple 
the  petty  and  the  serious,  as  when  the  eating  the  crust  of 
pie  was  loathsome  and  when  family  jars  "  sunk,"  he  says, 
"  his  youthful  soul  into  the  very  earth."  His  remedy  for 
one  was  an  experiment  made  by  himself,  one  day  when  the 
family  was  absent,  of  a  pie  without  any  crust,  into  which 
he  put  all  the  internal  ingredients  he  had  seen  his  mother 
use,  —  milk,  sugar,  water,  vinegar,  salt,  pepper,  butter, 
ginger,  and  allspice.  The  result  miserably  failed  of  his 


A  MEMOIR  21 

anticipation,  and  thereafter  he  submitted  to  the  crust  for 
the  sake  of  the  inside.  His  escape  from  wordy  wrangles 
was  more  successful,  —  he  put  his  fingers  in  his  ears.  He 
could  not,  however,  shut  out  the  knowledge  of  the  fact,  and 
it  depressed  his  young  life.  I  have  already  alluded  to  his 
sensitiveness,  which  is  often  the  token  of  the  finest  natures, 
and  which  at  once  makes  suffering  more  poignant,  the 
senses  more  acute,  the  mind  more  impressible,  and  joys 
deeper.  It  is  evident  Henry's  father  was  no  common 
man,  and  one  to  try  a  woman's  patience,  especially  when 
he  spent  his  nights  in  the  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of 
perpetual  motion.  Henry  was  ten  or  eleven  years  old  when 
he  began  to  be  allowed  to  sit  up  in  the  evening.  It  was 
in  the  autumn ;  and  there  happened  to  be  a  bright  full 
moon  whose  light  and  the  phantom-like  shadows  of  the 
great  girdled  trees  in  the  wheatfield  made  an  indelible 
impression,  and  one  remembered  to  his  latest  years.  It 
was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  seen  the  moon,  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  he  noticed  the  shadows  as  well  as  the 
light,  and  the  deep  darkness  at  the  edge  of  the  forest. 
An  imitative  period  of  boyhood  came  on,  and  Henry  tried 
to  reproduce  many  of  the  common  utensils  in  use  by  a 
household  that  made  most  of  its  own  clothing.  He  made 
a  pair  of  weaver's  temples,  which  he  exchanged  for  a  pig. 
Then  he  tried  to  produce  a  pair  of  pumps,  —  an  old  name 
for  slippers  ;  but  lasting  them  wrongly,  when  turned,  they 
were  inside  out,  which  ended  shoemaking.  The  pig  which 
Henry  had  earned  by  his  labor  was  a  great  comfort  to  him 
for  many  weeks,  until  it  was  seized  by  a  sheriff  for  his 
father's  debts.  He  was  not  the  sole  sufferer.  In  the 
absence  of  his  father,  who  had  gone  into  the  Eastern  States 


22  HENRY   DEXTER 

to  sell  leather  and  shoes,  and  who  never  returned  and  of 
whom  we  hear  no  more,  his  creditors  had  come  on  a  certain 
day  and  stripped  the  house  of  nearly  everything  in  it,  to 
the  knives  and  forks,  beds,  linen,  pins  and  needles,  and 
"sister  Ann's  scissors,  pin-cushion,  and  sampler."  Each 
creditor  disputed  with  every  other  for  the  possession  of 
the  scanty  household  goods.  Each  had  his  pile  and  a 
wagon  ready  to  carry  it  away.  There  was  the  "Benton 
pile,"  the  "  Salisbury  pile,"  and  others  more  or  less  large. 
This  scene  was  the  most  distressing  of  his  childhood ;  poor 
piggy  was  gone,  his  pet,  on  whose  fattening  he  had 
counted  his  first  earthly  riches.  While  the  family  troubles 
continued,  his  natural  pensiveness  grew  into  a  settled 
melancholy.  He  could  not  laugh,  he  could  not  play ;  he 
thought  that  it  was  this  sad  experience  which  gave  his 
facial  expression  the  sombre  cast  that  it  never  outgrew. 
Troubles  thickened  upon  the  destitute  family.  Two  of  the 
children,  Henry's  playmate  sister  and  a  younger  brother, 
were  taken  to  the  home  of  their  mother's  father  in  Con- 
necticut, and  soon  after  an  elder  brother  followed,  and  in 
another  year  the  mother  and  two  remaining  children. 
The  journey  to  Connecticut  was  through  Albany,  and  for 
the  first  time  he  saw  buildings  that  joined  each  other, 
shop  windows,  a  wooden  image  of  an  Indian  at  the  door 
of  a  tobacconist,  and  he  says  that  all  he  could  utter 
was  one  continual  "  Oh ! "  At  Albany  they  took  ship, 
otherwise  the  schooner  "  Sallie,"  Captain  Spellman,  which 
including  stops  was  seventeen  days  in  making  New  York 
City.  The  days  were  full  of  wonder  and  novelty  to  the 
twelve-year-old  boy  who  had  never  before  seen  a  vessel, 
a  city,  or  any  scenery  comparable  to  that  of  the  Hudson 


A  MEMOIR  23 

River.  He  observed  and  took  note  of  everything,  so 
that  fifty  years  afterward  he  could  recall  every  incident 
of  the  voyage.  If  his  head  was  not  turned,  the  skies 
were,  and  the  sun  seemed  then  and  for  years  afterward 
to  rise  in  the  west.  The  schooner  remained  some  time 
at  a  wharf  on  the  Battery,  and  Henry  made  several  excur- 
sions around  the  city  and  spent  one  shilling  and  sixpence 
for  a  picture-book.  Although  he  wanted  many  things  that 
he  saw,  good  to  have  or  to  eat,  pictures  then  as  always  were 
the  most  coveted  possession.  In  company  with  his  mother 
he  visited  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  and  for  a  purpose.  His 
mother,  the  stern  woman  who  did  not  allow  her  children  to 
read  "  Gulliver's  Travels,"  was  in  search  of  the  grave  of 
Charlotte  Temple,  and,  when  found,  wept  over  it !  Few 
readers  will  probably  recall  the  story  of  Charlotte  Temple, 
which  was  one  of  the  most  widely  read  books  of  that  gen- 
eration ;  a  sad  tale  of  seduction,  abandonment,  profligacy, 
and  death.  Whether  the  narrative  was  authentic  or  not, 
I  am  unable  to  say ;  but  it  is  known  as  almost  the  first  of 
a  long  series  of  subsequent  "  true  tales  founded  on  fact," 
and  was  very  popular  for  many  years.  Sentimentality, 
pathetic  and  moral  reflections  are  its  characteristics.  A 
woman  with  five  children,  from  the  backwoods  of  New 
York,  weeping  over  the  grave  of  Charlotte  Temple  in 
St.  Paul's  churchyard  in  the  year  1818,  strikes  one  as  a 
unique  tribute,  and  throws  a  decided  and  unexpected  light 
on  the  real  nature  of  Henry's  mother.  The  boy  was  im- 
pressed with  a  mighty  awe  on  entering  St.  Paul's  church, 
and  felt  sure  God  dwelt  there ;  he  dared  not  speak,  nor 
hardly  step.  He  visited  Fulton  Market,  then  recently  built 
and  the  pride  of  the  city.  A  boy  sees  what  he  has  eyes 


24  HENRY   DEXTER 

to  see,  and  Ms  seemed  to  see  everywhere  chiefly  pocket- 
knives  and  picture-books.  But  what  most  delighted  him 
were  the  figure-heads  on  the  vessels  lying  at  the  wharves. 
After  four  days  the  "  Sallie "  spread  her  sails  again, 
headed  for  the  East  River,  passed  through  Hell  Gate,  which, 
having  heard  much  about  it,  Henry  thought  he  should 
never  come  out  of  alive,  and  in  twenty-eight  hours  reached 
Newport  and  in  a  few  hours  more  Providence,  their  port 
of  destination.  From  this  place  the  journey  was  continued 
by  land  to  Killingly,  Connecticut,  the  home  of  Mrs. 
Dexter's  parents.  It  was  fifteen  years  since  she  had  left 
them,  and  the  meeting  was  a  scene  of  emotions  of  the 
strange  New  England  kind,  expressed  in  few  words,  re- 
pressed in  the  unspeakable.  Of  all  this  Henry  took  note, 
himself  entirely  unheeded  by  his  grandparents.  He  was 
soon  put  to  work,  as  it  was  planting-time,  until  some 
permanent  employment  could  be  found  for  him.  There 
were  several  factories  in  and  around  Killingly,  and  in  one 
of  these  he  found  a  place.  At  the  end  of  the  first  week 
he  overheard  the  overseer  say,  "  That  boy  is  a  fast  learner ; 
he  will  soon  be  able  to  earn  a  dollar  a  week."  Henry  went 
home  to  his  mother  on  Saturday  night  thinking  his  pros- 
pects settled  for  life.  His  leaning  toward  certain  trades, 
and  above  this  his  aspiration  to  paint  pictures,  all  had 
ended  in  a  cotton-mill.  But  his  good  genius  was  not  far 
off  and  rescued  him.  The  cotton-mill  did  not  start  up 
on  Monday  nor  on  Tuesday ;  the  owners  had  failed  — 
most  opportunely,  and  the  little  cotton-spinner's  thread 
was  woven  into  other  webs. 

Mrs.  Dexter  did  not  remain  long  with  her  parents.     She 
hired  a  house  on  the  borders  of  Killingly  and  Pomfret, 


A  MEMOIR  25 

where  Henry,  the  oldest  child  at  home,  had  plenty  of 
work  in  assisting  his  mother,  chopping  wood,  and  in  the 
care  of  a  garden.  He  found  in  the  neighborhood  new 
and  agreeable  companions.  He  began  to  go  to  school 
again,  and  had  for  his  teacher  a  prim,  soft-voiced  dea- 
con's daughter  of  forty  years.  She  brought  flowers  to 
school,  and  had  other  unusual  and  original  ways.  Among 
them,  her  punishments  consisted  in  the  recitation  of  appro- 
priate hymns  for  different  misdemeanors.  Henry's  lot  was 
to  recite  one  of  Watts',  and  this  punishment  was  brought 
upon  him  by  the  jealousy  of  one  of  the  girls  on  account 
of  his  attentions  to  another.  This  school  seems  to  have 
stimulated  him  for  the  first  time  to  independent  study, 
which  he  undertook  at  home  in  leisure  hours.  He  made 
his  own  copy-book,  and  his  mother  made  the  ink.  His 
amusements  were  few  and  simple.  He  gathered  nuts  and 
bartered  them  in  Providence  for  molasses,  tea,  and  other 
household  necessities.  Meanwhile  he  worked  out  in  the 
neighborhood,  when  wanted,  for  a  dollar  a  week.  By  a 
singular  and  significant  chance  he  came  near  being  em- 
ployed by  a  certain  Captain  Alexander.  A  neighbor  had 
told  Mrs.  Dexter  that  this  Captain  Alexander  wanted  a 
boy.  "  It  is  a  good  place,"  said  the  neighbor,  "  and  he  has 
a  son  Frank,  who  can  teach  Henry  to  paint  likenesses." 
"What!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Dexter,  "paint  folks'  faces?" 
uYes,"  was  the  answer;  "their  boy  Frank  is  a  sort  of 
shiftless  fellow.  He  would  n't  work,  he  would  n't  do  any- 
thing but  just  hang  around  the  house  and  paint."  This 
was  enough  to  decide  Mrs.  Dexter;  she  could  not  have 
her  boy  in  the  same  house  with  such  a  young  man.  It 
was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  Henry,  but  turned  out  only 


26  HENRY  DEXTER 

a  postponement ;  for,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  this  Frank 
Alexander,  afterward  a  celebrated  portrait-painter,  had 
much  to  do  with  putting  Henry  on  his  true  path.  For 
this  time,  however,  we  must  follow  the  boy  to  the  farm  of 
Stephen  Dana,  in  Pomfret,  a  bachelor  farmer,  whose  house 
was  kept  by  his  mother.  Here  is  a  very  graphic  descrip- 
tion of  her :  "  She  was  now  old ;  she  wore  a  brown  dress 
with  a  trail  fastened  up  in  the  back,  a  white  kerchief  over 
her  shoulders  and  pinned  in  front,  and  a  cap  with  a  full 
flaunting  border.  Her  hair  was  snow-white,  her  lips  some- 
what parted,  and  she  stooped  as  she  walked."  Here  is 
another  description  of  a  boy's  feelings  when  he  leaves 
home  for  the  first  time,  and  one,  I  dare  say,  thousands 
of  New  England  men,  once  poor  boys  with  their  own 
living  to  get,  will  recognize :  "  Monday,  March  27,  1820. 
There  was  a  poor  woman  up  early  in  the  morning  prepar- 
ing breakfast  by  candlelight  for  her  little  son,  whom  she 
had  just  awakened,  saying,  '  Come,  Henry,  it 's  time  to  get 
up ;  I  'm  afraid  you  will  be  late  at  Mr.  Dana's.'  I  could 
not  eat  much  breakfast ;  there  was  a  lump  in  my  throat, 
and  my  eyes  felt  watery.  Mother  said  to  me,  'Come, 
come,  be  a  man,  and  don't  think  anything  about  it.'  I 
rather  thought  she  felt  bad  too,  but  she  tried  to  hide  it 
from  me.  She  had  a  little  bundle  of  clothing  done  up 
for  me.  All  the  way  my  hat  felt  strangely,  my  feet 
dragged,  and  all  the  nut-trees  with  which  I  was  familiar 
seemed  to  say,  4  Good-by,  Henry.' " 

At  Stephen  Dana's  Henry  learned  many  new  things. 
The  house  was  ancient  and  large.  The-  hearth  burned 
like  a  bonfire,  with  logs  four  feet  long.  There  was  a 
quaint  clock,  the  first  Henry  had  ever  seen,  and  he  had 


A  MEMOIR  27 

to  learn  to  tell  the  time  of  day.  Then  there  were  two 
weekly  newspapers,  a  secular  and  a  religious,  the  latter 
of  which  was  the  only  one  permitted  to  be  read  on  the 
Sabbath.  Strict  order  was  kept  in  the  house,  in  the  barn 
and  woodpile.  Mrs.  Dana  was  a  pious  Presbyterian;  on 
her  little  table  could  always  be  seen  the  Bible,  with  her 
spectacles  upon  it,  and  by  its  side  her  knitting-work. 
But  Stephen  had  sundry  suspicious-looking  square  bottles, 
and  a  pair  of  meeting-boots  whose  upper  soles  had  not 
been  worn  thin  in  seven  years.  The  best  room  held  a 
bed  with  copperplate  prints,  as  they  were  called,  (a 
glazed  and  highly  colored  cotton  fabric  once  in  vogue 
for  draperies  in  New  England  bed-chambers),  on  which 
were  displayed  pictures  of  Washington,  Franklin,  and 
other  heroes  of  the  Revolution.  These  interested  the  boy 
more  than  anything  else  in  the  house.  By  the  end  of  the 
first  week  he  felt  happy  and  grateful  that  he  had  found 
so  good  a  place,  and  on  the  first  Sunday  night  he  made  a 
prayer  of  thanks  to  his  Maker  for  directing  him  to  such 
kind  people.  They  were  indeed  kind,  —  kind  and  queer 
as  the  queerest  Connecticut  farmers  in  their  generation. 
Henry's  first  Sunday  in  a  Pomfret  church  was  ever  a 
memorable  day.  For  the  first  time  he  heard  a  preacher 
read  a  sermon,  and  had  some  doubts  whether  or  not  it 
was  preaching ;  he  heard  the  organ,  and  saw  a  foot-stove, 
square  pews  and  a  sounding-board.  He  listened  to  a 
prayer  so  long  "he  thought  his  legs  would  break  in 
two."  Much  comfort  it  was  to  him,  on  returning,  to 
have  a  few  hours  to  himself,  to  polish  up  his  only  piece 
of  money,  a  ninepence ;  and  the  very  next  day  more  com- 
fort in  an  ewe  lamb,  which  Mr.  Dana  gave  him.  Good 


28  HENRY  DEXTER 

times,  indeed,  and  the  happiness  of  small  things,  which,  in 
after  years  of  greater,  gave  him  pleasant  memories,  and  an 
insight  of  the  true  elements  of  human  felicity. 

Like  his  mother,  Mrs.  Dana  was  a  great  story-teller,  but 
not  of  ghosts,  warnings,  and  rustic  superstitions.  Being 
thirty  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, she  was  a  storehouse  of  Revolutionary  tales,  and 
remembered  all  the  great  battles  and  incidents  of  the  war. 
She  was  intensely  patriotic,  never  would  drink  tea  after 
the  Boston  Tea  Party,  and  still  had  in  her  buffet  in  the 
best  room  a  number  of  cracked  cups  and  saucers  as  sou- 
venirs of  a  tea-table  the  cloth  of  which,  when  surprised 
by  three  country  patriots,  the  women  gathered  up  by  the 
four  corners,  and  tossed  the  whole  contents  into  a  back 
room.  From  her  lips  Henry  heard  much  of  his  country's 
history,  and  learned  to  love  it.  Some  peculiarities  in  Mrs. 
Dana  he  never  could  understand,  —  why  she  fastened  her 
trail  up  in  the  back ;  why  she  should  sob  and  shed  tears 
when  speaking  of  serious  things;  and  above  all,  having 
scrubbed  the  floor,  why  she  should  then  sprinkle  it  with 
sand.  He  was  her  attendant  to  church,  and  she  soon  had 
him  in  a  Sunday-school  class,  where  the  boys  were  paid 
one  cent  for  so  many  scriptural  verses  learned.  Henry 
selected  the  shortest  verses  he  could  find  in  order  to  get  as 
many  cents  as  possible  while  following  the  path  to  good- 
ness. The  wise  Mrs.  Dana  instructed  him  in  higher 
motives.  And  now  he  had  the  joy  of  a  visit  from  his 
mother,  who  brought  him  a  pair  of  new  pantaloons,  with 
a  stiipe  down  the  leg  which  made  him  very  proud.  His 
mother's  visit  brought  another  pleasant  result;  she  en- 
gaged to  let  her  daughter  Ann  help  Mrs.  Dana  in  her 


A  MEMOIR  29 

housework.  Ann  was  Henry's  favorite.  She  was  six- 
teen years  old,  a  pretty  girl,  with  a  mass  of  long  auburn 
hair,  not  only  long,  but  so  strong  she  could  suspend  herself 
by  it  for  a  whole  minute,  whereby  she  won  a  wager  which 
did  not  altogether  please  her  little  brother.  The  young 
Puritan  thought  it  was  not  proper.  These  small  signs 
indicate,  as  I  think,  his  extreme  sensitiveness  to  conduct. 
Most  boys  would  have  seen  only  fun  in  his  sister's  perform- 
ance. He  accumulated  several  ninepences  in  the  course 
of  the  year,  which  he  carefully  hoarded  in  the  till  of  his 
chest;  and  he  tried  in  vain  to  calculate  how  much  they 
would  increase  in  eleven  years  at  compound  interest. 
Eleven  years  more  would  make  him  twenty-four.  Tre- 
mendous thought!  and  so  far  away  seemed  twenty-four 
years,  he  never  expected  to  live  to  see  them.  Death  was 
one  of  old  lady  Dana's  chief  subjects  of  remark.  The 
close  of  the  day  reminded  her  of  it,  as  did  Saturday  night, 
and  the  passing  bell.  Henry  and  Stephen  Dana  stopped  in 
their  work  to  count  its  strokes,  and  then  waited  through 
the  awful  pause  for  the  strokes  which  told  the  sex,  —  one 
for  man,  two  for  woman.  On  returning  from  the  field, 
nothing  was  talked  of  but  the  death  and  the  funeral,  and 
Mrs.  Dana  would  say,  "  Ah,  Henry,  the  young  may  die, 
and  the  old  must." 

In  spite  of  this  distressing  atmosphere  of  a  dying  world 
Henry  thought  much  of  his  future  and  what  he  should  do. 
He  was  ashamed  and  too  timid  to  speak  of  what  he  aspired 
to  be.  He  describes  himself  at  this  period  as  a  young  aris- 
tocrat, by  which  he  means  that  he  felt  himself  superior  to 
his  present  employments  and  associations,  and  dimly  fore- 
saw another  and  more  congenial  sphere.  Thus  early  he 


30  HENRY  DEXTER 

was  a  careful,  frugal  boy,  and  very  observant  of  the  physi- 
cal and  mental  characteristics  of  men  and  women.  He  in- 
creased his  little  hoard  by  the  sale  of  his  lamb  for  eight 
shillings,  and  put  them  away  with  his  ninepences.  He 
wanted  a  lock  to  his  chest  as  Mr.  Dana  had  to  his  desk, 
the  key  of  which  he  was  always  careful  to  turn  and  then 
hang  up  in  plain  sight.  In  all  ways  Henry  was  very  con- 
siderately treated  by  this  family.  He  was  not  allowed  to 
overwork,  and  was  given  many  unusual  privileges.  His 
hardships  were  trifling ;  chiefly  in  boiled  dinners,  the  bane 
of  all  new  England  children,  and  everlasting  brown  bread. 
Wheat  bread  was  only  for  company.  Mrs.  Dana  baked 
once  a  fortnight,  according  to  her  ancient  custom.  But 
Henry  and  Ann  contrived  occasionally  to  cook  themselves 
a  custard,  and  nothing  was  said  by  the  kind-hearted 
mistress.  It  was  a  house  of  kindness,  with  no  scolding 
woman,  or  ugly,  exacting  man;  and  though  there  were 
few  pleasures,  there  were  no  irritations.  Few  were  the 
holidays,  and  seldom  the  interruptions  to  the  even  tenor  of 
the  days.  An  elephant  came  to  town,  which  Henry  saw ; 
but  Stephen  Dana  would  not,  as  he  did  not  believe  in  ele- 
phants, —  that  is,  he  did  not  believe  there  were  any  such 
animals.  But  though  Stephen  believed  not  in  elephants, 
he  had  some  soft  places  in  his  heart  rather  affecting  to 
read  of.  He  was,  as  has  been  said,  an  old  bachelor,  yet  not 
from  his  own  choice.  Once  he  had  loved  and  expected  to 
marry,  but,  being  rather  slow  in  coming  to  the  point, 
another  suitor  had  carried  off  the  prize.  This  pair  lived 
near  him,  and  their  young  children  were  Stephen's  chief 
pleasure  in  life.  He  never  went  near  their  house  himself, 
but  often  sent  Henry  to  bring  the  children  to  his  own, 


A  MEMOIR  31 

when  he  would  play  with  them,  carry  them  about,  one 
under  each  arm,  and  even  let  his  hay  get  wet  to  be  with 
them.  So  the  affections  were  kept  alive  in  the  house  of 
the  old  bachelor  and  the  aged  mother,  while  Henry  and  his 
sister  grew  more  fond  and  intimate.  She  was  always  doing 
something  to  make  life  pleasanter  for  him;  now  it  was 
braiding  him  a  new  straw  hat  and  again  baking  a  custard. 
They  went  about  together  among  the  neighbors,  and  their 
intimacy  and  devotion  to  each  other  were  much  commented 
upon.  Life  was  not  all  work,  as  we  sometimes  think,  on 
those  ancient  farms.  There  were  rainy  days  also,  times  of 
leisure  when  Henry  would  be  trying  his  hand  at  sundry 
inventions  which  want  of  tools  would  at  length  abruptly 
bring  to  an  end.  In  his  mind  he  had  invented  a  mowing- 
machine,  another  for  threshing,  and  still  another  for  flying. 
The  attic  was  a  treasury  of  antiquated  and  cast-off  articles. 
There  were  a  lot  of  shoe  and  knee  buckles,  cocked  hats, 
porridge  pots,  tin  ovens,  and  tin  lanterns,  a  great  and  little 
spinning-wheel,  old  canes,  hetchels  and  foot-stoves,  a  large 
pile  of  Poor  Richard's  Almanacs,  and  a  mysterious  chest 
which  was  never  opened.  Dried  herbs,  corn,  and  beans 
hung  all  about  from  the  rafters.  There  Henry  could  amuse 
himself  on  stormy  days.  But  neither  the  attic  nor  other 
parts  of  the  house  contained  any  books.  There  was, 
however,  a  small  public  library  in  the  town,  from  which 
Henry  obtained  permission  to  take  books.  The  first  one 
he  selected,  and  probably  the  first  he  had  ever  read,  was 
Silliman's  Travels.  He  thought  it  must  be  the  most 
interesting  book  ever  printed;  so  it  seemed  in  his 
ingenuous  ignorance. 
He  was  now  in  his  sixteenth  year  and  the  third  of  service 


32  HENRY  DEXTER 

with  the  Dana  family.  He  had  been  to  school  winters,  and 
had  shown  himself  an  apt  pupil,  standing  at  the  head  of 
his  classes.  If  he  had  work  to  do  that  permitted,  he  had 
a  book  near  by.  In  this  manner,  while  threshing  one  fall, 
he  committed  the  whole  of  Lindley  Murray's  grammar  to 
memory,  and  then  his  arithmetic  in  the  same  way,  going 
round  the  threshing-floor  with  the  nominative  case,  indica- 
tive mood,  and  present  tense,  and  when  reaching  his  book 
again,  taking  up  some  other  of  the  rules  of  grammar  or 
arithmetic. 

It  began  to  be  noised  about  that  he  was  to  be  Stephen 
Dana's  heir,  so  well  liked  was  the  boy,  and  so  intimate  had 
they  become.  His  mother  thought  he  was  beginning  to 
look  like  Stephen  and  to  have  his  form,  even  to  the  round 
shoulders  of  his  master.  In  this  his  sixteenth  year  he  says 

V  */ 

life  began  to  assume  a  stern  reality  to  him.  He  began  to 
revolve  the  problem  of  an  occupation.  The  docile  boy, 
accepting  his  mother's  opinion  that  fiddling,  poetry,  and 
painting  only  prepared  the  bed  of  the  shiftless  and  the 
poor,  had  to  turn  his  face  away  from  those  attractive  direc- 
tions. What  was  there,  then,  that  he  could  do  ?  He  thought 
of  teaching;  but  his  mother  thought  of  blacksmithing ; 
and  so  one  day  he  went  prospecting  to  a  blacksmith  shop. 
At  Danielsonville,  six  miles  from  Pomfret,  he  found  an 
opening  for  apprenticeship  to  John  Chollar.  Mrs.  Dana 
gave  him  her  blessing  and  a  Bible,  and  Stephen  drove  him 
and  his  little  chest  to  his  new  home,  on  April  7,  1822. 

On  a  floor  of  black  earth,  standing  beside  his  anvil,  with 
one  foot  on  the  anvil  block,  and  in  one  hand  a  hammer, 
Mr.  Chollar  greeted  him  and  said  he  was  glad  he  had  come. 
Without  further  ceremonies  Henry  rolled  up  his  sleeves  and 


A  MEMOIR  33 

put  on  a  leather  apron,  in  which  we  must  now  see  him  for 
the  next  eleven  years.  With  a  great  effort  he  choked  back 
his  tears.  Once  more  all  his  hopes  for  a  different  career 
were  blighted.  After  a  few  weeks'  trial  Henry  was  regu- 
larly indentured  to  Mr.  Chollar  for  four  years,  to  learn  the 
whole  art  and  mystery  of  blacksmithing.  His  reflections 
on  the  entrance  to  a  new  occupation  are  so  nafve  that  I 
quote  a  few  sentences :  "  Was  I  always  to  be  a  blacksmith  ? 
I  never  saw  a  blacksmith  able  to  be  a  blacksmith  and  ride 
in  a  chaise.  It  was  said  Mr.  Chollar  was  making  money ; 
he  had  married  a  fine  wife,  and  all  this  I  might  perhaps 
do ;  but  it  all  looked  so  dreary  to  me.  It  was  not  what  I 
had  aspired  to  be  and  to  do." 

In  those  days  a  young  apprentice  had  many  other  things 
to  do  besides  learning  a  trade.  He  must  do  the  chores  at 
his  master's  house  and  the  odd  jobs  at  the  shop.  And 
so  Henry  continued  for  some  time  longer  to  be  a  hewer 
of  wood  and  a  drawer  of  water,  to  feed  the  pig,  milk 
the  cow,  and  help  his  mistress  on  wash-days.  These 
things  must  usually  be  done  before  breakfast.  After 
breakfast  the  pious  blacksmith  read  a  chapter  of  the  Bible, 
made  a  prayer,  and  then  the  long  day's  work  began,  from 
sun  to  sun,  and  in  winter,  by  the  light  of  the  forge  and 
a  candle  suspended  above  the  anvil.  Holidays  were  few. 
In  the  parlor  of  Mr.  Chollar's  house  there  hung  his  por- 
trait, painted  by  Frank  Alexander.  When  Henry  saw  it 
for  the  first  time,  his  old  feelings  revived  and  he  could 
think  of  nothing  else.  It  was  singular  how  this  painter's 
name  and  work  seemed  to  follow  Henry  wherever  he  went, 
and  in  the  end,  as  we  shall  see,  influenced  his  whole  sub- 
sequent career.  But  we  must  for  a  little  while  keep  to 

3 


34  HENRY  DEXTER 

the  shop.  There  Henry's  common  duties  were  to  take 
horses,  which  were  to  be  shod,  out  of  the  wagon,  put  them 
in  again,  blow  the  bellows,  bring  in  charcoal,  fetch  water, 
and  hoist  the  gate  for  the  water-power  of  the  trip-hammer. 
When  he  found  a  chance,  he  learned,  working  by  himself, 
a  little  of  his  trade.  The  blacksmith's  trade  at  that  time 
included  the  making  by  hand  of  all  the  tools  in  use  on 
the  farm.  To  make  a  good  hoe  and  axe  was  the  ne  plus 
ultra  of  the  forge  and  anvil  and  of  an  accomplished  black- 
smith. When  left  alone,  Henry  practised  at  everything 
he  saw  done  in  the  shop.  In  the  first  year  he  plated  a 
hoe,  a  difficult  work,  and  mended  the  broken  horn  of  the 
anvil,  which  his  master  had  told  him  never  could  be  done. 
His  chief  pleasure  in  his  trade  was  undertaking  difficult 
jobs,  and  though  he  does  not  speak  of  it,  he  must  soon 
have  been  appreciated  by  his  master.  Praise  for  boys  and 
apprentices  was  thought  impolitic ;  censure  and  correction 
good  to  make  men  of  them.  Henry's  thoughts  were  not 
in  the  shop;  oftener  they  were  in  the  parlor  with  Mr. 
Chollar's  portrait,  or  dreaming  and  planning  some  future 
work  more  to  his  taste  than  horse-shoes  and  trip-hammers. 
Eighteen  months  after  his  apprenticeship  had  begun,  an 
event  happened  which,  seemingly  unimportant,  proved  of 
much  consequence.  A  family  by  the  name  of  Kelley  moved 
into  a  house  next  to  his  master's.  Mrs.  Kelley  was  a 
sister  of  the  painter  Alexander.  When  Henry  found  this 
out,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
family,  led  by  some  dim  presentiment  that  it  would  be  of 
use  to  him.  After  this  the  blacksmith's  shop  seemed  less 
depressing.  At  the  same  period  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  Tiffany  family,  one  of  whose  sons,  about  Henry's 


A  MEMOIR  35 

age,  was  Charles,  subsequently  the  head  of  the  great 
jewelry  firm  of  New  York.  The  lonely  boy,  working 
thirteen  and  fourteen  hours  a  day,  occupied  himself  in 
the  short  intervals  between  labor  and  sleep  in  making 
rhymes  and  comforting  himself  with  reading  Zimmerman 
on  Solitude,  the  "  Boston  Recorder  "  and  the  Bible.  These 
were  the  only  books  in  his  master's  house,  this  the  only 
newspaper.  The  limited  outlook  and  opportunities  of 
the  old  New  England  towns  and  villages  were  as  astonish- 
ing as  their  general  intelligence  and  sturdy  maintenance 
of  their  civil  and  religious  rights.  It  requires  a  careful 
study  of  details  to  understand  the  paradox.  While  at- 
tempting to  show  the  growth  of  a  single  human  being  in 
such  environments  as  I  am  describing,  I  hope  somewhat 
of  the  general  characteristics  of  the  time  will  appear  and 
indirectly  explain  what  has  made  this  country  of  ours 
what  it  is. 

In  the  second  year  of  Henry's  apprenticeship  he  worked 
over  time  in  the  night,  earning  a  little  extra  money.  He 
made  horseshoe  nails  at  ten  cents  a  hundred  and  peg- 
cutters  for  a  dollar  each.  At  the  end  of  the  second  year 
his  menial  labors  were  over;  he  was  promoted,  another 
boy  was  apprenticed  who  wore  ruffled  shirts  on  Sundays 
and  who  refused  to  do  chores  and  mangle  clothing.  In  his 
third  year  Henry  appears  to  have  become  a  skilled  work- 
man. He  made  axes,  hoes,  shoe-knives  with  which  a 
man  could  shave  himself,  and  pen-knives  that  would  clip  a 
hair.  As  now  the  senior  apprentice,  he  began  to  feel  him- 
self of  some  importance ;  he  grew  more  cheerful  and  could 
keep  his  face  cleaner;  but  he  had  not  yet  the  courage 
to  go  into  the  house  where  lived  the  sister  of  Francis 


36  HENRY   DEXTER 

Alexander,  who  all  the  time  was  his  mysterious  guiding 
star.  He  had  once  seen  this  young  artist  at  a  distance, 
and  it  made  his  heart  beat  as  though  it  were  the  presence 
of  some  sweetheart.  The  youth  who  has  not  had  this 
experience  stands  little  chance  of  becoming  its  cause. 

With  his  improving  fortunes  came  the  wish  to  have 
what  he  found  to  admire  in  others,  —  a  finer  nose,  better 
features,  and  handsomer  hair ;  in  short,  everything  men 
praise  and  honor,  — 

"  Wishing  me  like  to  one  more  rich  in  hope, 

Featured  like  him,  like  him  with  friends  possessed, 
Desiring  this  man's  art  and  that  man's  scope." 

It  took  time  and  much  reflection  to  accept  himself  just  as 
he  was,  and  to  discover  that  his  hand  was  his  own  as  long 
as  it  injured  none,  and  that  his  foot  could  be  planted  for- 
ward as  long  as  it  did  not  tread  on  another's.  His  moral 
nature  grew  with  his  growth,  so  that  he  easily  escaped  the 
temptations  of  youth.  His  mother's  teachings  were  always 
present  with  him,  and  she  had  laid  a  special  emphasis  on 
the  idea  that  God  could  discern  the  secrets  of  the  heart. 
At  the  same  time  he  became  conscious  of  a  certain  con- 
stitutional weakness  the  effect  of  an  abnormal  sensitive- 
ness. He  confesses  that  he  felt  himself  inferior  to  every 
one  with  whom  he  cared  to  associate,  and  he  thought  others 
took  the  same  measure  of  him.  He  suffered  much  from 
this  mistake,  and  it  accompanied  him  to  some  extent 
through  life,  and  was  the  foundation  of  the  modesty  and 
self-effacement  so  charming  and  noticeable  when  there 
was  no  longer  any  occasion  for  them.  He  gave  full  credit 
to  all  men,  and  was  always  more  than  generous  in  his 


A  MEMOIR  37 

judgments.  A  sensitive  nature  loves  and  is  immensely 
stimulated  by  approbation ;  and  censure  is  correspondingly 
depressing  and  cruel.  How  much  he  suffered  in  his  child- 
hood and  youth  the  pages  of  his  autobiography  plainly 
show,  and  also  how  little  it  took  to  give  him  joy  and  exalt 
his  spirit.  But  repression  was  the  fashion  of  the  time ; 
do  what  he  would  he  could  hardly  ever  extract  a  spark 
of  praise  from  the  rocky  and  rigorous  hearts  of  his  masters 
and  employers.  He  fought  out  the  hard  battle  by  his 
own  thoughts,  a  home-made  philosophy,  and  by  the  help 
of  his  faith  in  God. 

The  outward  incidents  of  his  life  during  his  apprentice- 
ship are  meagre.  There  was  a  Fourth  of  July  celebration, 
at  which,  by  the  explosion  of  a  gun-barrel,  he  nearly  lost 
his  right  hand ;  there  was  a  hanging  with  fifteen  thousand 
spectators,  all  of  whom,  he  says,  went  home  declaring  they 
would  never  see  another;  his  old  and  fast  friend  Mrs. 
Dana  died,  and  he  went  a  sincere  mourner  to  the  funeral, 
and  could  never  bear  to  go  into  the  house  again. 

All  at  once,  during  the  year  1826,  without  indicating 
he  had  fallen  in  love,  he  states  in  his  autobiography  that 
he  is  engaged  to  Miss  Kelley,  the  niece  of  Francis  Alex- 
ander, the  artist.  The  steps  which  led  to  this  acquaint- 
ance and  engagement  are  not  given.  But  however  it 
happened,  he  was  now  in  the  family  circle  of  an  artist, 
in  a  position  to  make  his  acquaintance,  to  see  his  works, 
all  of  which  soon  occurred,  and  "I  said  to  my  inmost 
soul,  thou  also  art  to  be  a  painter."  Yet  not  a  word 
escaped  his  lips  at  present  as  to  his  intentions  and  hopes, 
—  hopes  which  sustained  him  through  the  remaining  years 
of  blacksmithing. 


38  HENKY  DEXTER 

At  the  close  of  his  apprenticeship  he  had  become  the 
most  skilled  workman  in  the  region.  Whatever  could  be 
done  at  the  forge  or  bench,  with  anvil  or  hammer  or  file 
or  cold  chisel,  he  could  do.  He  felt  even  then,  as  he  once 
said  to  me,  speaking  of  those  days,  that  he  could  hammer 
a  statue  out  of  iron.  Difficult  jobs  were  intrusted  to 
him,  and  he  never  failed  of  success.  It  was  doubtless 
the  native  art  instinct  which  made  him  such  an  accom- 
plished artisan  in  working  his  rough  materials.  His  dex- 
terity he  inherited  with  his  name ;  and  to  this  were  added 
a  quick  perception  and  rapidity  of  execution.  These  gifts 
were  noted  when  he  began  to  cut  marble  into  human  like- 
nesses. For  the  present  he  was  making  axes  at  the  rate 
of  a  dozen  in  a  forenoon,  when  other  workmen  made  the 
same  number  in  a  day.  He  was  earning  a  dollar  a  day 
and  his  board.  At  length  his  "  Freedom  Day  "  came ;  his 
apprenticeship,  with  its  heart  and  bone  aches,  its  few 
hours  of  pleasure,  was  at  an  end.  He  celebrated  it  by  a 
visit  to  his  mother,  who  still  lived  in  Pomfret,  and  by  a 
call  on  Miss  Kelley,  his  affianced.  But  days  meant  dollars, 
and  none  must  be  wasted.  He  still  continued  at  his 
labors,  with  the  bitter  thought  that  he  was  no  nearer  his 
true  vocation  than  four  years  before.  However,  circum- 
stances, or  that  destiny  which  presides  over  the  fortunes 
of  men  who  never  forget  their  ideals,  was,  unseen  and 
unguessed,  leading  him  on. 

In  the  summer  of  1826  or  1827  it  was  announced  that 
Francis  Alexander  would  spend  his  vacation  at  his  home 
if  half-a-dozen  sitters  could  be  obtained  for  him.  By 
the  exertions  of  Henry,  five  were  promised,  and  he 
himself  would  be  the  sixth.  It  was  not  any  wish  to  see 


A  MEMOIR  39 

himself  on  canvas  that  influenced  him,  but  simply  the 
desire  to  discover  how  the  work  was  done.  This  appears 
to  have  been  the  absorbing  thought  of  his  life  at  this 
period,  —  "to  see  a  painter  commence  a  portrait  and  learn 
the  rudiments  of  the  art."  "  My  mother,"  he  goes  on  to 
say,  "  had  told  me  there  was  a  mystery  about  it,  and  that 
no  one  could  do  it  who  was  not  born  under  a  particular 
star.  I  did  not  know  what  star  ruled  at  my  birth,  but  I 
felt  that  I  could  paint  a  picture  if  I  had  the  colors  and 
could  see  the  way  in  which  they  were  used."  Hence  his 
determination  to  obtain  the  sitters  and  be  one  himself. 
August  came,  and  brought  the  painter.  He  was  often 
at  Henry's  shop,  and  was  fond  of  observing  how  the 
various  jobs  were  done.  One  day  he  called  and  said  he 
was  ready  to  begin  on  his  portrait.  Henry  took  off  his 
leather  apron,  washed  his  face  and  hands  and  put  on  his 
best  suit,  and  adjusted  a  large  white  handkerchief  around 
his  neck,  after  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  still  had  doubts 
as  to  the  proper  dress  for  such  an  important  occasion. 
He  entered  the  extemporized  studio.  Shawls  and  spreads 
darkened  the  windows,  except  the  upper  part  of  one  for  the 
high  light.  Henry  took  in  all  the  outfit  of  the  painter,  — 
brushes,  colors,  and  a  curious  thing  which  he  later  learned 
was  a  palette.  But  a  great  disappointment  awaited  him, 
for  when  the  painter  began  to  work  he  could  not  see  the 
canvas  ;  it  was  turned  from  him.  However,  he  made  some 
important  discoveries  by  asking  questions.  He  found  out 
why  the  windows  were  darkened,  and  what  the  cup  con- 
tained into  which  the  artist  now  and  then  dipped  his 
brushes.  He  also  learned  the  cost  of  colors.  He  was 
cautious  in  his  questions,  fearing  to  be  questioned  in 


40  HENRY  DEXTER 

return.  At  the  second  meeting  Alexander  would  talk  of 
everything  save  his  art;  but  his  sitter  surprised  him  by 
some  inquiries  about  ultramarine.  At  the  third  sitting 
the  portrait  was  completed,  all  too  soon  for  the  sitter,  who 
had  hoped  to  learn  the  secrets  of  the  art.  Yet  he  had 
divined  more  than  his  eyes  saw. 

In  May,  1828,  he  was  married  to  Miss  Kelley.  He  was 
twenty-one,  she  was  twenty.  This  union  lasted  for 
twenty-nine  years  and  was  always  a  happy  one.  To  his 
wife's  excellent  administration  of  his  affairs  was  due  in 
large  measure  his  endurance  of  the  early  struggles,  and 
in  his  later  successes  a  good  measure  of  freedom  from 
worldly  cares.  They  had  three  children,  a  son  who  died 
in  infancy  and  two  daughters ;  one  of  the  latter,  Mrs. 
Harriet  D.  Mason,  is  lately  deceased;  the  other,  Mrs. 
Anna  E.  Douglass,  still  lives,  and  has  devoted  much  time 
and  care  to  the  preservation  of  her  father's  works  and 
memory. 

The  newly  married  pair  went  to  housekeeping  in  an 
outlying  village  of  Killingly,  where  he  had  purchased 
a  blacksmith's  stand  and  begun  business  for  himself. 
Now  his  own  master,  disposer  of  his  own  days  and  with 
a  house  where  he  could  do  what  he  pleased  without 
observation,  his  mind  dwelt  much  on  painting,  and  he 
resolved  to  try.  He  had  no  materials  for  the  attempt, 
and  did  not  dare  to  go  to  Providence,  the  nearest  city, 
to  find  them,  for  fear  one  of  the  six  persons  whom  he 
knew  in  that  city  should  discover  him  buying  paints 
instead  of  iron.  Accordingly  he  decided  to  go  to  Hart- 
ford, forty-five  miles  away,  and  where  no  one  knew  him. 
Nor  did  he  tell  any  one  his  errand,  not  even  his  wife,  but 


A  MEMOIR  41 

went  about  it  as  darkly  as  if  it  were  some  dreadful  crime. 
After  an  all-day  stage-ride,  he  arrived  in  Hartford.  Early 
the  next  morning  he  was  about  his  business.  He  stum- 
bled upon  a  sign-painter's  shop,  where  he  had  a  curious 
interview  with  the  proprietor,  who  he  found  had  once 
been  assailed  by  an  ambition  to  be  a  painter,  and  Henry 
saw  himself  exactly  reflected  in  the  story  of  this  man. 
He  was  kindly  and  affable,  told  him  all  he  knew  of  color, 
and  invited  him  to  visit  the  State  House  to  see  an  artist 
who  was  copying  Stuart's  portrait  of  Washington.  Here 
Henry  asked  some  questions  about  colors,  but  found  the 
artist  disinclined  to  communicate  the  secrets  of  his  art. 
At  length  he  found  a  shop  where  colors  were  sold,  and 
where  he  had  an  amusing  time  evading  questions  as  to 
what  he  wanted  them  for,  to  confess  which  he  says  would 
have  "  rent  him  into  a  thousand  fragments."  He  had 
learned  something  of  the  relative  proportions  of  color 
needed  in  painting,  and  so  he  bought  most  of  white, 
then  yellow,  black,  and  enough  prussian  blue  to  last 
forty  years,  and  completed  his  purchases  with  oil  and 
brushes.  On  his  way  home  he  was  attacked  by  a  fit  of 
despondency  which  tempted  him  to  throw  his  paints  and 
oils  out  of  the  coach  window.  But  a  little  harder  work 
than  usual  to  make  up  for  lost  time  restored  his  cheerful- 
ness and  the  resumption  of  his  purposes.  He  stretched 
a  canvas ;  but,  knowing  nothing  of  the  necessary  sizing  of 
it,  the  paints  struck  through  and  he  was  obliged  to  paint 
it  over  several  times. 

His  mother  was  his  first  subject.  He  worked  at  once 
with  the  brush,  without  drawing,  and  in  three  sittings 
had  completed  the  portrait  as  far  as  his  skill  at  that 


42  HENRY  DEXTER 

time  would  allow.  It  was  a  faithful  likeness,  good  in 
form  and  color,  whatever  technical  faults  it  had.  It  is 
still  preserved  in  the  family,  and  is  a  very  remarkable 
painting,  considering  that  it  was  done  by  a  young  man  of 
twenty-two,  without  training,  practice,  or  any  previous 
advantages  whatever.  After  this  the  consciousness  that 
he  could  paint  a  portrait  was  most  precious.  He  began 
more  clearly  to  divine  what  his  future  was  to  be.  A 
new  life  was  revealed  to  him,  freed  from  the  hammer 
and  the  horse-shoe,  freed  from  everything  that  hitherto 
had  made  the  day  but  a  hopeless  and  sordid  round  of 
uncongenial  labor. 

Hast  thou  ever  seen  a  country  blacksmith's  forge  when 
there  was  no  work  for  it  ?  It  looks  black  and  fireless,  but  it 
is  not ;  in  its  heart  there  is  heat  which  a  blast  from  the  bel- 
lows blows  into  a  flame.  It  was  thus  in  the  soul  of  young 
Dexter;  the  fire  of  his  genius  smouldered  through  long 
intervals  of  obstruction  and  despair,  yet  never  died  out;  a 
favoring  breath  could  awaken  it,  a  chance  word,  any  cir- 
cumstance unapparent  except  to  him  who  kept  the  sacred 
spark. 

He  could  now  wait  patiently  the  propitious  hour  of  his 
complete  deliverance.  He  was  willing  to  toil  and  sweat 
at  his  anvil  for  a  while  longer,  being  sure  of  the  future. 
He  had  no  suitable  canvas,  nor  did  he  know  very  well 
how  to  prepare  his  colors,  and  was  constantly  interrupted 
by  the  calls  of  his  business.  That  he  might  paint  during 
any  moment  of  leisure,  he  kept  one  room  in  his  house 
which  was  so  near  to  his  shop  that  he  could  easily  be  called 
when  wanted.  This  room  and  its  purpose  were  kept  a 
profound  secret  to  all  save  his  own  family,  among  whom 


A  MEMOIR  43 

he  found  subjects  sufficient  for  his  frequently  interrupted 
sittings.  He  undertook  a  portrait  of  one  of  his  sisters.  In 
this  he  was  not  so  successful  as  with  that  of  his  mother.  She 
was  young,  and  had  none  of  those  strongly  marked  lines 
which  are  easier  to  fix  on  canvas.  It  became  noised  about 
in  the  town  that  he  was  painting  portraits.  It  reached 
the  ears  of  Alexander,  who  sent  him  word  that  he  should 
be  at  home  shortly,  and  would  call  and  examine  his  work. 
He  came ;  the  pictures  were  shown,  and  the  humble  black- 
smith felt  that  his  fate  was  in  the  hands  of  a  man  whom 
he  had  every  reason  to  believe  his  friend.  He  expected 
merciful  criticism.  Instead  of  criticism,  Alexander  asked 
him  if  he  intended  to  become  an  artist,  and,  if  so,  what 
was  to  become  of  his  family  ?  One  may  be  allowed  to 
think  he  had  an  eye  to  the  interests  of  his  niece,  whom 
Dexter  had  recently  married.  When  Henry  flinched  at 
this  question,  and  "like  a  fool,"  as  he  says  in  the  page 
before  me,  "  denied  myself,  and  answered  that  I  should 
never  be  an  artist,"  Alexander,  apparently  relieved  from 
any  anxiety  on  account  of  his  niece,  or  of  having  a  rival 
in  his  own  demesne,  began  to  speak  in  praise  of  the  por- 
traits, and  suggested  what  was  needed  to  improve  them. 
After  this  interview  with  Alexander  he  lost  hope  for  a 
time.  His  sensitive  nature  was  crushed  for  want  of  en- 
couragement and  help  from  the  only  source  within  his 
little  world,  and  once  more  the  forge  blazed  and  the  anvil 
grew  brighter.  For  seven  years  more  he  bowed  to  the 
yoke  and  bore  the  burden  of  despair.  Then  at  length  he 
broke  all  the  bonds  that  had  held  him.  He  rented  his  busi- 
ness, sold  his  house  and  began  in  earnest  to  paint  portraits 
of  his  family  and  friends  until  he  felt  sure  enough  to  offer 


44  HENRY   DEXTER 

his  brush  to  a  larger  public.  By  this  time  Alexander,  who 
had  been  his  guiding  star  from  boyhood,  though  sometimes 
obscured,  became  very  friendly  to  him ;  and,  by  his  advice, 
Dexter  went  to  Providence  in  the  spring  of  1836  and 
opened  a  studio. 


A  MEMOIR  45 


n 

THE  PORTRAIT-PAINTER 

MR.  DEXTER  was  a  prudent  man,  having  been 
inured  to  the  economies  of  New  England  com- 
munities from  childhood,  and  did  not  abandon  his  business 
until  he  had  laid  by  some  hundreds  of  dollars  with  which 
to  face  the  expenses  of  an  experiment  as  a  portrait-painter. 
His  friends  and  neighbors  thought  him  little  less  than  a 
fool  to  give  up  a  profitable  trade,  and  at  his  age  to  think  of 
becoming  an  artist.  Undismayed,  he  set  out  for  Provi- 
dence, leaving  his  family  behind  for  the  time.  In  going  to 
Providence  he  was  still  following  in  the  track  of  Francis 
Alexander,  who  had  been  in  that  city  some  time  previously, 
and  had  painted  family  portraits  among  the  leading  citi- 
zens. In  Providence  he  made  friends  and  found  some 
patrons,  probably  through  the  recommendation  of  Alex- 
ander. As  later  he  was  most  successful  in  producing  excel- 
lent likenesses  in  portrait-busts,  so  in  painting  this  seems 
to  have  been  his  especial  gift.  Of  their  technical  merits 
I  am  not  able  to  speak  with  positiveness.  But  a  friendly 
letter  from  Alexander  at  this  time  hints  at  some  defects, 
while  praising  his  work  as  a  whole.  Omitting  other  per- 
sonal matters,  I  extract  from  the  letter  what  especially 
concerns  Dexter's  efforts  as  a  painter.  "  I  have  observed 
your  paintings  particularly,  and  have  compared  your  first 
productions  with  your  last.  I  must  acknowledge  that 


46  HENRY  DEXTER 

your  last  are  painted  in  a  better  style  than  I  thought  you 
had  attained  to.  I  give  you  joy,  and  I  give  you  credit,  too, 
for  the  study  and  the  industry  it  must  have  cost  you  to 
make  so  great  advancement  in  so  short  a  time.  The  back- 
grounds of  the  portraits  are  almost  right ;  the  only  fault  is 
they  are  too  blotchy  or  too  spotted.  The  transparent  effect 
is  produced,  however,  and  that  is  encouraging.  I  think, 
instead  of  changing  your  style  for  the  style  of  some  one 
else,  you  have  only  to  improve  and  perfect  your  own.  You 
seem  to  be  on  the  right  track.  Drawing  is  the  foundation 
of  all  excellence  in  painting.  I  think  you  draw  the  face 
well  now,  and  the  figure  better  than  you  did.  You  ought 
to  define  the  folds,  of  the  dress  a  little  more,  particularly 
about  the  shoulders  and  neck  of  your  portraits.  'T  is  well 
to  let  the  portrait  sink  into  shade  and  obscurity  at  or  near 
the  bottom  of  the  picture.  ...  I  advise  you  to  stay  in 
Providence  as  long  as  you  can  have  constant  employment 
at  twenty  dollars  a  portrait,  and  I  advise  the  good  Provi- 
dence people  to  sit  to  you  until  they  are  all  painted.  They 
will  never  get  such  perfect  likenesses  and  so  well  painted 
for  that  price  from  any  other  artist  with  whom  I  am  ac- 
quainted. But  I  advise  you  to  paint  for  that  price  while 
you  have  full  employment ;  not  because  your  portraits  are 
not  worth  more,  but  because  you  must  have  a  great  deal  of 
practice,  facility  and  finish  in  your  painting  before  you  can 
ask  fifty  or  a  hundred  dollars.  You  must  not  be  in  such 
haste  to  get  one  hundred  dollars  for  your  portraits  as  to 
deserve  it.  Always  bear  that  in  mind ;  because  if  you  once 
deserve  it,  you  will  always  get  it ;  but  if  you  exact  it  before 
you  really  deserve  it,  you  may  be  put  to  the  humiliation  of 
lowering  your  price." 


A  MEMOIR  47 

In  a  few  weeks  he  returned  to  his  family  in  Killingly, 
and  not  with  an  empty  purse.  He  had  painted  at  least  a 
dozen  successful  portraits  of  prominent  Providence  people, 
and  had  received  more  than  his  price  for  some  of  them. 
His  eyes  were  opened  to  what  had  already  been  done  by 
other  artists,  and  to  the  serious  nature  of  his  newly  chosen 
profession.  He  realized  how  much  was  to  be  accom- 
plished before  he  could  deserve  the  name  of  artist.  Fresh 
trials  awaited  him;  many  heretofore  had  been  met  and 
overcome,  and  now  having  brought  himself  over  the 
threshold  of  his  aspirations,  which  in  his  sanguine  outlook 
he  supposed  would  admit  him  to  complete  fulfilment,  he 
found  greater  impediments  than  before.  These,  however, 
were  of  the  kind  whose  conquest  brings  pleasure  and 
power.  To  work  along  one's  chosen  line  and  according 
to  one's  genius,  with  or  without  the  world's  recognition, 
is  the  truest  happiness  known  to  man.  In  Providence 
the  field  was  not  large,  and  Dexter  was  only  a  gleaner 
after  several  artists  had  canvassed  the  city.  In  those  days 
there  were  more  patrons  of  portrait-painting  than  at  pres- 
ent, as  well  it  might  be,  when  you  could  have  a  successful 
likeness  taken  for  from  twenty  to  fifty  dollars.  Many 
such  portraits  are  now  of  priceless  value  on  account  either 
of  the  subject  or  the  artist.  Age  has  mellowed  and  dark- 
ened the  pigments,  and  hidden  in  the  background  technical 
deficiencies.  The  drawing  may  be  rude,  but  somehow  the 
earlier  American  painters,  ere  there  was  much  thought  of 
pose  or  technique  or  idealization,  had  a  way  of  bringing  out 
a  likeness  squarely  and  boldly.  They  had  not  yet  been 
troubled  with  theories,  nor  much  divided  by  rivalries  and 
schools.  There  were  no  academies,  no  exhibitions  except 


48  HENRY   DEXTER 

private  ones,  no  hanging  above  or  below  the  line.  Most  of 
our  early  sculptors  and  painters  had  been  mechanics  in 
their  younger  days,  and  were  self-taught  in  their  subse- 
quent career  as  artists.  Native  talent  led  them  into  their 
profession,  or  some  chance  developed  it.  John  Frazee, 
who  appears  to  have  been  our  first  native-born  sculptor,  was 
originally  a  stone-cutter.  H.  Augur  was  a  grocer's  clerk 
and  shoemaker.  Horatio  Greenough  —  well-born  and 
offered  the  best  education  of  his  time  —  left  college  behind 
and  devoted  himself  to  art,  and,  though  he  died  young,  has 
the  distinction  of  being  the  precursor  of  sculpture  in  this 
country.  Hiram  Powers  was  in  early  life  a  mechanic,  or 
rather  a  mechanician.  Ball  Hughes  was  by  trade  a  stone- 
cutter; so  was  Clevenger;  and  E.  A.  Brackett  tried  six 
trades  before  finding  his  true  one.  H.  K.  Brown  painted 
signs,  and  cut  silhouettes  with  scissors  in  his  rough  appren- 
ticeship to  art.  These,  and  many  other  instances  in  this 
and  other  countries  in  all  times,  show  that  neither  oppor- 
tunities nor  special  education  are  the  school  of  the  arts. 

I  consider  Dexter  fortunate  in  his  early  life,  notwith- 
standing its  hardships  and  postponements.  If  he  sometimes 
almost  lost  his  identity  in  the  long  years  of  uncongenial 
labor,  it  was  only  to  find  it  again  with  an  ever-increasing 
intensity  of  purpose  and  clearer  insight  of  what  he  wished 
to  do  and  to  be.  I  do  not  use  the  words  to  be  to  round 
the  sentence,  but  to  mark  the  moral  characteristics  of  the 
man  who,  while  so  ambitious  to  follow  the  life  of  an  artist, 
neglected  no  common  duty  toward  his  family,  his  fellow- 
men  and  the  religion  he  professed.  He  never  cast  so  much 
as  a  sidelong  glance  into  the  risky  realm  of  Bohemia,  was 
strictly  temperate,  economical,  provided  for  his  family 


A  MEMOIR  49 

when  without  food  himself,  and  was  wholly  unpretentious 
in  all  his  habits  of  life  and  in  his  manners.  For  this  I 
honor  and  praise  him.  I  admire,  more  than  anything  else 
in  our  time  and  native  land,  the  plebeian-born  man  who 
maintains  and  cherishes  his  natural  simplicity,  and  who, 
distinguished  or  wealthy,  declines  to  join  the  patrician 
ranks  of  society. 

After  Dexter  had  exhausted  the  opportunities  that 
Providence  offered,  there  came  another  short  period  of 
uncertainty.  He  was  conscious  of  being  as  yet  only  an 
amateur.  Practice  was  his  great  desire  at  this  time ;  he 
returned  to  his  family  in  Killingly,  and  painted  everybody 
who  could  be  induced  to  sit  to  him.  But  this  work  could 
not  last;  a  larger  field  must  be  found.  Once  more  he 
made  a  bold  leap  into  a  dark  uncertainty,  although  it  was 
into  Boston,  then  the  most  promising  resort  of  artists  and 
writers  in  the  United  States.  He  had  only  one  acquaint- 
ance there,  Francis  Alexander.  He  was  friendly  and  help- 
ful. It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1836  that  he  arrived  in 
Boston  and  hired  Bromfield  Hall,  on  the  street  of  the  same 
name,  a  room  sixty  by  twenty  feet.  This  he  divided  into 
three  portions ;  one  for  a  studio,  another  for  a  chamber,  and 
a  third  he  rented.  He  boarded  himself,  after  what  manner 
can  be  guessed  when  his  food  bill  per  month  for  some  time 
was  three  dollars  and  fifteen  cents.  The  times  were  hard ; 
money  scarce ;  coal  was  eleven  dollars  per  ton,  wood  the 
same  per  cord,  and  flour  eleven  dollars  a  barrel.  If  money 
was  scarce,  sitters  were  scarcer.  Artists  of  reputation  were 
out  of  work;  what  could  a  beginner  without  name  and 
friends  expect?  The  lawyers  were  without  clients,  doctors 

without  fees.     People,  then  as  now,  in  times  of  business 

4 


50  HENRY  DEXTER 

depression,  starved  artists  or  drove  them  into  the  prostitu- 
tion of  their  gifts.  Idleness  was  something  Dexter  never 
could  endure,  and  he  had  many  unhappy,  because  un- 
occupied days  in  Bromfield  Hall.  Alexander  introduced 
him  to  a  few  prominent  men  in  Boston,  among  them  Col. 
Samuel  Swett,  his  father-in-law,  who  became  a  friend  and 
encourager.  He  struggled  on  for  some  time,  painting  a 
few  portraits  and  copying  a  few,  barely  earning  enough  to 
meet  his  expenses. 

But  suddenly  a  new  turn  came  in  his  affairs;  a  new 
path  opened  which  he  was  to  follow  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life.  He  was  casually  recommended  to  secure  some 
clay  which  the  sculptor  Greenough  was  leaving  behind 
him  when  about  to  go  to  Italy,  and  practise  modelling 
as  a  help  toward  obtaining  a  better  knowledge  of  form 
in  portraits.  He  had  the  clay  brought  to  his  studio, 
where  it  lay  in  a  corner  for  some  months,  growing  dry 
and  hard.  In  an  idle  hour  he  gathered  up  some  of  it, 
softened  it  with  water,  placed  it  on  the  top  of  a  barrel  and 
began  to  mould  the  head  of  a  brother  artist  who  happened 
in,  and  to  whom  he  playfully  remarked,  "  Come,  White,  let 
me  put  your  head  into  this  mud."  He  had  no  knowledge 
of  the  manner  of  handling  clay,  and  having  no  tools,  he 
used  his  fingers  for  forming  the  features.  The  clay  became 
an  amorphous  lump ;  then  the  rude  outline  of  a  face  such 
as  we  fancy  we  see  in  clouds  or  mountain  crag  appeared ; 
and  at  last  the  distinct  lineaments  and  similitude  of  the 
face  before  him,  frightening  himself  and  astonishing  his 
model.  And  this  was  the  morning  and  the  evening  of  the 
first  day  when  the  sculptor  was  created  in  the  soul  of 
Henry  Dexter. 


A  MEMOIR  51 


III 

THE  SCULPTOR 

FOR  a  time  longer  Dexter  continued  painting  portraits 
and  modelling  in  clay,  according  as  he  had  orders 
for  the  one  or  leisure  for  the  other.  He  had  had  no 
regular  instruction  in  either  art,  and  devised  his  own 
methods  and  made  his  own  tools.  At  this  period,  with  a 
single  exception,  he  had  never  even  watched  a  painter  at 
his  work,  or  clay  in  the  hands  of  a  sculptor ;  least  of  all, 
had  he  any  notion  how  to  handle  a  block  of  marble,  for 
it  is  doubtful  if  a  portrait-bust  in  marble  or  any  sort  of 
statuary  had  hitherto  been  attempted  in  this  country. 
Suitable  marble  was  hard  to  obtain  and  very  expensive. 
It  was  understood  that  in  Italy  it  was  cheap,  and  journey- 
men, half  artists,  could  be  hired  to  cut  marble  after  models 
with  sufficient  faithfulness.  Hence,  at  the  dawn  of  sculp- 
ture in  this  country,  the  students  of  the  art,  who  appear 
to  have  sprung  up  almost  simultaneously  between  1830 
and  1840,  went  to  Italy  as  soon  as  they  could,  where  most 
of  them  succumbed  to  the  climate  and  prematurely  died. 
This  exodus  continues  to  the  present  day,  both  among 
sculptors  and  painters,  and  has  proved  in  the  highest 
degree  detrimental  to  any  distinctive  national  character- 
istic in  art.  But  it  is  said  this  is  just  what  we  do  not 
want;  art  in  its  best  estate  is  universal.  Nevertheless, 


52  HENRY   DEXTER 

Dexter  believed  that  it  must  first  be  particular,  local,  if 
you  please,  expressive  of  a  confined  and  individual  civi- 
lization, race,  climate,  institutions,  beliefs,  —  everything,  in 
short,  which  divides  mankind  and  shuts  it  to  its  own 
isolated  development,  —  before  it  can  become  a  thing  of 
beauty  for  all  the  world  to  admire.  Our  runaway  artists 
bring  us  back  only  Greek  imitations  and  French  color, 
which  remind  us  here,  in  poor  artless  America,  of  the  Afri- 
can cannibal  who  has  eaten  his  victim  and  is  wearing  his 
silk  hat  and  patent-leather  shoes,  —  all  between  he  is  naked. 
The  sturdy  New  England  Yankee,  for  such  was  Dexter 
by  descent  and  breeding,  would  have  none  of  this.  He 
had  no  longings  for  Europe,  and  thought  that  an  American 
artist  —  if  with  genius,  so  much  the  more  —  ought  to  stay 
at  home,  develop  himself  in  his  own  soil,  and  devote  his 
brush  or  his  chisel  to  native  subjects.  I  mention  this 
view  of  his  here  because  it  will  explain  once  for  all  much 
that  was,  and  continues  to  be,  unusual  in  this  sculptor's 
work  and  career.  I  may  also  add  to  what  has  been  said, 
his  intense  patriotism  and  interest  in  his  country's  progress 
in  every  artistic  and  intellectual  direction.  He  had  spent 
only  a  very  small  portion  of  his  life  in  cities  ;  he  was  the 
child  of  the  inland  country  and  of  nature,  and  continued 
throughout  his  life  to  have  an  unsophisticated  heart. 

He  loved  his  art  well,  so  well  indeed  that  he  could  not 
bear  to  forego  or  commit  to  others  even  the  mere  drudgery 
of  it.  He  liked  to  do  every  part  of  the  work  with  his 
own  hands,  and  thought  this  practice,  and  the  invention 
and  manufacture  of  his  own  tools,  and  all  the  appliances 
of  his  profession,  helped  him  to  a  fuller  and  more  intimate 
understanding  of  sculpture.  Doubtless  it  was  so,  and  was 


A  MEMOIR  53 

the  secret  of  the  rapidity  and  sureness  with  which  clay 
took  form,  and  stone  fell  away  from  the  imprisoned  statue. 
Much  as  he  might  regret  his  twelve  years  at  the  anvil,  it 
must  have  been  due  to  his  long  exercise  in  the  manual  arts 
of  the  blacksmith's  shop,  where,  as  I  have  said,  all  sorts  of 
work  were  brought  for  mending  or  making,  that  he  was 
able  almost  at  once  to  cut  marble  into  human  effigies. 

Bromfield  Hall  saw  his  first  experiments  in  modelling 
and  reproduction  in  plaster  casts.  He  was  much  encour- 
aged in  his  earliest  attempts  by  the  approval  of  his  good 
genius,  Alexander,  who,  happening  to  see  the  clay  model 
he  had  made  of  the  artist  White,  procured  him  at  once 
another  subject,  a  Cambridge  student  by  the  name  of  Lane. 
These,  so  far  as  I  have  discovered,  were  his  first  and  only 
experiments  before  attempting  the  serious  business  of 
modelling  a  bust  to  be  preserved  and  exhibited.  Col. 
Samuel  Swett,  whose  portrait  he  had  already  painted,  sat 
to  him  for  a  portrait-bust.  Dexter  put  forth  all  his  power 
to  make  it  a  success,  and  it  was.  It  brought  him  into 
public  notice;  but  he  says  this  first  essay  in  modelling 
gave  him  no  such  inward  satisfaction  as  when  he  painted 
his  first  portrait.  People  praised  and  wondered,  wondered 
with  that  wonder  which  always  attends  the  sudden  out- 
burst of  power  with  no  antecedent  preparation  or  expec- 
tation in  the  public  mind.  That  which  is  phenomenal  is 
liable  to  brief  and  delusive  applause.  Unfortunately  it 
follows  some  precociously  developed  talent,  or  prodigy  of 
music,  mathematics,  or  in  letters  or  art,  which  after  a 
little  the  fatal  mantle  of  oblivion  covers.  The  rise  is 
instant  and  dazzling;  the  collapse  more  slow,  but  inevi- 
table. It  strikes  the  world  with  amazement  and  curiosity 


54  HENRY  DEXTER 

that  a  peasant  should  write  verses,  or  a  mechanic  become 
an  artist.  We  rush  to  read  and  to  view.  A  genius  is 
discovered,  and  it  is  well  for  him  if  the  discovery  be  not 
his  ruin.  Certain  it  is  he  needs  the  public  notice  ;  and  an 
artist  needs  it  rather  more  than  a  poet,  unless,  like  Millet, 
he  is  willing  to  lead  the  life  of  a  peasant.  The  poet  can 
wait  and  starve  without  suffering  quite  so  sharply  as  the 
artist.  The  former  can  dig  potatoes  while  meditating  the 
thankless  muse.  Writing  is  its  own  reward ;  art  must  be 
also,  yet  hungers  more  for  a  customer. 

There  were  many  years  between  1830  and  1850  when 
Boston,  although  commercially  pinched,  did  not  suffer 
artists  and  the  literary  class  to  go  altogether  unrecognized 
and  unpaid.  Its  noble  citizens  were  proud  of  their  city 
and  its  artists,  poets,  orators  and  statesmen,  most  of  whom 
it  encouraged  with  honors  and  patronage.  Any  marked 
talent  was  sure  of  appreciation  and  reward ;  and  the  city 
was  not  so  big,  or  so  divided  in  race  and  taste,  but  that 
the  interest  in  art  and  literature  could  be  general  in  all 
classes.  In  a  small  way  it  was  the  Augustan  age  of  the 
city.  As  was  said  once  of  Weimar,  Boston,  in  1840,  had 
ten  thousand  poets  and  philosophers,  and  a  few  inhabitants. 
If  it  did  not  last  long,  its  influence  has  been  extensive  and 
is  a  proud  memory. 

Dexter  was  fortunate  in  coming  to  Boston  when  he  did. 
He  was  noticed  as  soon  as  he  definitely  took  up  sculpture, 
and  had  as  much  work  as  he  could  do.  He  was  known  as 
the  "  blacksmith  artist "  at  first,  and  of  course  with  no  little 
wonder;  but  then  nearly  every  one  of  any  importance  in 
the  city  had  sprung  from  similar  humble  and  obscure  be- 
ginnings. The  surprise  soon  wore  off,  and  Dexter  held  his 


A  MEMOIR  55 

rightful  place  as  the  maker  of  himself  and  his  fortunes. 
He  was  not  overpowered  by  his  successes,  but  labored 
with  increased  ardor  and  the  most  patient  industry  to 
make  himself  master  of  the  sculptor's  art.  He  took  les- 
sons in  anatomy,  and  was  constantly  studying  the  human 
figure.  He  made  busts  of  the  Rev.  Hubbard  Winslow,  and 
of  Peter  Harvey,  Daniel  Webster's  great  friend, — for  each 
of  which  he  received  fifty  dollars.  This  made  him  rich  and 
hopeful.  Better  things  were  in  store  and  near.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Winslow  brought  into  his  studio  Boston's  most  hon- 
ored citizen  and  its  mayor,  Samuel  Eliot,  to  sit  for  his  bust. 
When  it  was  completed  and  in  plaster,  Mr.  Eliot  was  so 
well  satisfied  that  he  said,  "  Mr.  Dexter,  you  may  put  my 
bust  into  marble."  What !  the  marble  bust  of  the  mayor 
of  Boston,  its  great  man  at  the  moment,  most  distinguished 
among  his  fellow-men  for  culture,  liberality,  and  all  the 
other  Boston  virtues,  and  he  wishes  to  be  made  immortal 
now  in  stone !  No  wonder  that  the  artist  felt  elated,  and 
that  success  seemed  assured,  fame  and  a  livelihood  almost 
within  his  grasp.  "I  could  not  believe  what  I  heard," 
Dexter  says  in  his  own  mention  of  the  incident.  He  had 
no  marble,  nor  any  of  the  tools  of  the  sculptor;  more- 
over, he  had  never  put  mallet  to  chisel ;  but  the  marble 
could  be  bought,  and,  as  to  tools,  he  knew  well  how  to 
make  them  with  his  own  hands.  He  set  to  work,  having 
to  teach  himself  everything  that  pertains  to  the  cutting  of 
marble.  I  believe  neither  then  nor  ever  afterward  had  he 
seen  a  sculptor  at  work.  I  would  that  we  had  some  record 
of  his  sensations  in  this  his  earliest  attempt  at  sculpture. 
I  find  none,  and  it  must  be  left  to  conjecture.  Every  one 
who  uses  even  a  pen  has  some  notion  how  a  portrait  is 


56  HENRY  DEXTER 

produced ;  how  it  is  built  up  from  outlines  and  color,  and 
expression  brought  out  with  the  brush.  Just  the  reverse 
seems  the  procedure  in  sculpture ;  it  arrives  at  results  by 
elimination;  and  for  every  touch  of  the  painter's  brush, 
the  sculptor  must  cut  away  something;  he  cannot  paint 
out  and  paint  in  -,  every  blow  must  be  decisive.  Hence, 
it  seems  to  me,  as  I  try  to  imagine  Dexter's  management 
of  his  first  block  of  marble,  there  must  have  been  infinite 
trepidation  and  misgivings  in  the  preliminary  reduction  of 
the  mass  to  the  rough  lineaments  of  a  face,  and  an  equal 
delight  when  he  had  succeeded  in  producing  a  likeness. 
A  likeness  was  the  main  thing  to  achieve,  and  all  that  was 
required  by  the  public  or  patrons.  In  the  sculptured  figure 
or  bust  we  cannot  look  for  the  reproduction  of  the  inward 
spirit,  so  often  interpreted  in  painting,  and  there  is  left  to 
the  spectator  the  task  of  supplying  this  from  his  knowledge 
of  the  individual  portrayed,  his  history,  his  achievements, 
or  whatever  else  distinguished  him.  Therefore  only  the 
greatest  men  or  the  most  ideal  subjects  should  be  honored 
in  marble,  to  which  associations  and  imagination  may  lend 
what  the  too  rigid  stone  cannot  convey.  Form  is  the  sculp- 
tor's only  means  of  accomplishing  this.  To  his  first  marble 
bust  Dexter  succeeded  in  giving  an  admirable  likeness. 
The  features  and  character  of  Mr.  Eliot,  a  well-fed, 
rotund,  prosperous  man,  were  well  enough  expressed  in 
the  rounded  and  polished  marble.  It  was  considered  a 
great  achievement ;  Mr.  Eliot's  personal  worth  and  official 
position  added  lustre  to  the  work,  and  attracted  attention 
and  commendation  to  the  artist.  Dexter's  record  of  the 
work  is  this:  "I  have  this  day,  June  9,  1838,  completed  a 
marble  bust  of  Hon.  Samuel  A.  Eliot,  it  being  the  first  I 


A  MEMOIR  57 

ever  made,  the  first  time  I  ever  struck  marble  with  mallet 
and  chisel." 

Meanwhile  his  circumstances  had  permitted  him  to 
move  his  family  from  Connecticut.  He  took  a  house  in 
Cambridgeport,  on  Auburn  Street,  nearly  opposite  that 
of  Washington  Allston.  He  soon  found  the  rent  too 
much  for  his  purse,  and  moved  next  to  a  smaller  house 
on  Harvard  Street,  in  the  easterly  part  of  Cambridgeport. 
It  may  be  as  well  to  mention  here  his  other  removals.  In 
1844  he  had  saved  money  enough  to  purchase  and  partly 
pay  for  a  house  on  Broadway,  building  a  studio  and  gallery 
in  connection  with  it,  where  he  continued  to  abide  until 
1873,  when  he  took  up  his  residence  on  the  same  street, 
Old  Cambridge.  To  return  for  a  moment  to  the  Auburn 
Street  house;  it  was  there  he  became  acquainted  with 
Allston,  whom  he  found  friendly  and  helpful.  He  has 
left  an  account  of  a  call  he  once  made  on  the  painter, 
which  is  worth  preserving. 

"  To-day,  August  22,  1838,  I  called  upon  Washington 
Allston.  I  arrived  at  the  door  precisely  at  12  M.  I  rapped, 
but  no  answer ;  the  door,  to  all  appearance,  was  locked,  but 
no  key  inside  or  out ;  a  handle  to  the  door,  but  no  thumb- 
piece  or  latch,  and  the  hole  firmly  plugged  up.  I  left, 
thinking  I  had  mistaken  the  hour  of  the  appointment, 
and  returned  again  about  one  o'clock;  rapped  as  before, 
was  on  the  point  of  leaving  again,  as  I  had  no  reply,  but 
upon  repeating  my  rap  I  heard  a  voice  saying,  'Wait  a 
minute ; '  and  precisely  at  one  the  door  opened,  and  I  was 
received  as  cordially  as  I  ever  was  by  my  most  intimate 
acquaintance.  I  stood  doubting,  and  apologized  and  ex- 
pressed my  fears  that  I  was  intruding.  As  I  passed  from 


58  HENRY  DEXTER 

the  hall  into  the  painting-room,  I  noticed  his  care  in  lock- 
ing both  the  doors  and  withdrawing  the  keys.  But  what 
did  I  see  on  entering  ? 

"A  large  room,  so  large  that  it  looked  almost  empty, 
though  it  contained  here  and  there  boxes,  canvases  turned 
towards  the  wall,  easels,  and  in  one  corner  a  great  number 
of  casts  of  heads,  feet,  knees,  hands,  — all  fragments  from 
the  antique,  —  with  several  figures  originally  whole,  but 
now  much  broken.  Allston  took  from  a  closet  a  foot  of 
his  own  modelling,  of  colossal  size,  —  a  splendid  thing  it 
was.  He  made  it  for  the  purpose  of  copying  in  one  of 
his  historical  paintings.  He  then  brought  forth  two  small 
figures  that  he  had  modelled  for  the  same  purpose.  He 
offered  to  loan  me  the  Gladiator  to  copy.  After  he 
had  gone  through  with  the  casts,  which  gave  me  much 
pleasure,  I  asked  to  be  informed  as  to  the  manner  he  pre- 
pared absorbent  grounds,  to  which  he  readily  consented; 
he  said,  'Anything  I  can  tell  you  I  shall  do  with  great 
pleasure.  I  have  a  formula  for  those  grounds  which  I  will 
find  and  send  to  you.  I  will  show  you  a  canvas  prepared 
in  that  way ; '  then  he  turned  around  the  canvas  with  a 
sketch  upon  it  which  attracted  my  attention  much  more 
than  the  canvas  itself.  Then  he  showed  me  sketch  after 
sketch ;  one  in  particular  attracted  my  attention ;  it  was 
a  scene  from  Shakespeare's  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
in  outline,  with  perhaps  two  dozen  figures,  a  landscape, 
and  river.  Some  of  the  figures  were  extremely  graceful. 
Then  he  showed  me  a  sketch  of  'Christ  Healing  the 
Lame  Man.'" 

Mr.  Allston  died  in  July,  1843.  Dexter  was  with  him 
the  evening  before  his  death,  and  was  one  of  the  few  per- 


A  MEMOIR  59 

sons  at  his  funeral  service,  which  took  place  after  dark, 
the  burial  service  at  the  grave  being  read  by  the  light  of 
lanterns. 

His  next  order  was  from  Hon.  Thomas  H.  Perkins,  fore- 
most among  Boston's  art  patrons.  It  was  for  a  bust  of 
Ellen  Tree,  the  most  celebrated  English  actress  of  her 
day,  and  whom  Dexter  had  already  painted  in  one  of  her 
stage  characters.  To  this  order  Mr.  Perkins  also  added  a 
replica  of  a  hand  which  the  artist  had  made  as  a  study 
from  the  hand  of  his  little  daughter  Anna.  There  is  a 
pretty  story  connected  with  this  hand  :  when  it  was  done, 
Mr.  Perkins  gave  the  sculptor  a  check  for  fifty  dollars, 
which  he  drew  from  the  bank  in  one  hundred  silver  half- 
dollars.  These  he  took  home  tied  up  in  a  handkerchief. 
He  emptied  the  shining  heap  into  his  little  daughter's  lap, 
as  the  successful  result  of  her  own  hand.  The  child  had 
a  small  wagon  which  the  half-dollars  filled  heaping  full. 
She  drew  the  wagon  about  in  play,  and  upset  it  many 
times  to  see  the  load  of  silver  roll  over  the  floor,  and  hear 
its  musical  chink. 

His  next  marble  bust  was  of  Judge  Jackson.  Then 
followed  the  memorial  marble  of  The  Binviey  Child,  the 
little  Emily,  which  at  once  made  him  famous.  This 
pathetic  figure  in  full  length  and  recumbent  —  its  little 
hands  folded  over  the  bosom,  sleeping,  nevermore  to 
awaken,  nor  would  one  wish  to  disturb  so  reposeful  and 
sweet  a  sleep  —  drew  throngs  to  Mount  Auburn.  It  was 
the  principal  attraction  of  that  celebrated  cemetery,  and 
largely  helped  to  make  its  early  fame.  I  can  myself  recall 
the  time  when  it  was  a  common  excursion,  if  one  wished  to 
take  a  walk  or  entertain  a  friendly  stranger,  to  go  out  to 


60  HENRY  DEXTER 

Mount  Auburn  to  see  The  Binney  Child.  With  some  truth 
it  may  be  said  visitors  went  there  for  that  single  purpose ; 
and  it  continues  to  be  a  great  attraction.  Time  and  storms 
have  made  sad  records  on  the  delicately  chiselled  features ; 
and  it  became  necessary,  in  order  to  save  it  from  complete 
destruction,  to  enclose  it  in  glass,  which  has  been  done  by 
the  filial  daughter  of  the  sculptor. 

Memorial  sculpture  for  private  persons  and  families  has 
lately  given  place  to  extreme  and  unadorned  simplicity. 
A  small  plain  stone,  with  name  and  date  in  briefest  com- 
pass, is  just  now  the  ruling  taste ;  or,  for  more  distinguished 
persons,  a  natural  bowlder,  with  possibly  a  verse  or  sig- 
nificant quotation.  Such  bowlders  mark  the  graves  of 
Emerson  and  Agassiz,  and  of  a  lesser  man,  Levi  Thaxter ; 
on  the  sea-worn  side  of  the  latter's  monument  is  inscribed 
an  epitaph  of  six  lines  expressly  written  for  it  by  Robert 
Browning.  Forests  of  white  marble  memorials  no  longer 
afflict  the  subdued  tastes  of  the  more  cultivated  classes,  nor 
mar  the  beauty  of  God's  acres  of  green  turf,  their  "  mortal 
hillocks,"  and  their  sheltering  trees.  Still  one  must  often 
note  the  touching  exception  in  the  case  of  young  children 
cut  off  before  their  time.  The  old  and  the  distinguished 
can  take  care  of  their  posthumous  memories ;  but  it  is  hard 
to  give  up  to  nothingness  and  oblivion  those  infantile  souls 
who  have  not  had  time  to  cause  themselves  to  be  remem- 
bered among  men.  They  must  have  the  tribute  of  art 
and  poetry  to  perpetuate  their  short  and  blessed  years. 
Nor  can  we  regret  this,  since  it  has  been  the  motif  of 
much  of  the  finest  statuary  the  world  over,  and  made  it 
possible  for  alien  eyes  and  hearts  to  pay  respect  to  the 
early  dead,  and  share  the  pain  of  years  that  had  lost  their 


A  MEMOIR  61 

spring.  No  one  can  look  upon  The  Binney  Child  with- 
out some  such  emotions.  As  a  work  of  art,  it  is  fault- 
less and  shows  great  skill  and  ingenuity  in  details.  It 
is  full  length,  and  in  high  relief,  and  must  have  involved 
great  difficulties  in  the  cutting,  and  the  most  delicate  and 
dexterous  touches  of  the  chisel.  It  is  notable  also  as 
the  first  piece  of  statuary  made  in  this  country  by  an 
American  sculptor. 

It  was  the  inspiration  of  several  poems.  Here  there 
is  space  but  for  one,  written  by  Miss  C.  F.  Orne. 

"  Yet  pause  we  here,  where,  if  the  sculptor's  art 
May  ever  soothe  the  mourner's  sorrowing  heart, 
It  may  console  the  friends  who  weep  for  thee, 
Young,  innocent,  and  gentle  Emily. 
We  stand  beside  thy  couch ;  to  hear  thy  breath 
We  almost  pause ;  and  is  it  sleep  or  death 
The  cunning  hand  of  art  would  seek  to  trace 
On  the  sweet  features  of  thy  placid  face  ? 
Through  the  oaks'  purple  leaves  the  radiant  light 
Cheats  for  a  moment  the  bewildered  sight ; 
And  bathed  in  rosy  hues  upon  the  snow 
Of  thy  fair  cheek  there  rests  a  crimson  glow ; 
So  still,  so  gentle  thy  repose  and  deep, 
We  almost  fear  to  wake  thee  from  that  sleep. 
Alas !  thy  slumber  is  too  deep,  too  still ; 
'T  is  Death  that  on  thy  brow  hath  wrought  his  will." 

In  Hawthorne's  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  "  there  is 
an  allusion  to  The  Binney  Child.  It  occurs  in  the  sketch 
called  The  New  Adam  and  Eve.  "  Such  a  child  in  whitest 
marble  they  have  found  among  the  monuments  of  Mount 


62  HENRY   DEXTER 

Auburn.  '  Sweetest  Eve,'  observes  Adam,  while  hand  in 
hand  they  contemplate  this  beautiful  object,  '  yonder  sun 
has  left  us  and  the  whole  world  is  fading  from  our  sight. 
Let  us  sleep  as  this  lovely  little  figure  is  sleeping.'  " 

In  the  year  1841  Dexter  removed  his  studio  to 
Tremont  Row.  Tremont  Row  appears  to  have  been  at 
that  time  the  favorite  rendezvous  of  artists.  Besides 
Dexter,  there  were  the  sculptors  Greenough,  Stevenson 
and  Brackett;  and  the  painters  Alexander,  Ames,  Green, 
Holyoke,  Hubbard,  Ordway,  Johnson,  Alvan  Clark  and 
Thomas  Ball. 

Dexter  had  occupied  Bromfield  Hall  for  three  years. 
There  it  was  that  he  had  wrought  out  his  final  art  ten- 
dency. He  had  painted  unto  starvation;  there  he  had 
experienced  most  of  the  trials  of  artists  in  their  early 
career.  He  had  known  the  proud  man's  contumely,  the 
insolence  of  the  rich  even  when  sitting  for  their  por- 
traits. Men  devoted  to  trade  looked  sharp  lest  they 
should  be  cheated,  and  were  not  above  taking  advantage 
of  the  poverty  of  the  painter  to  dispute  agreements,  haggle 
over  payment,  or  delay  it  until  the  fire  went  out  in  the 
studio  and  bread  failed.  These,  however,  were  exceptional 
incidents  in  those  three  years.  As  ever  in  the  Boston  of 
that  era,  the  helping  hand  was  ready  when  merit  or  talent 
in  any  field  was  discovered.  This  local  characteristic  con- 
tinues to  this  day,  despite  the  sneers  and  fleers  of  other 
cities  at  Boston's  provincialism  and  self-esteem.  But  in 
the  increase  of  its  population,  the  multiplication  of  its 
interests,  it  sometimes  happens  that  an  obscure  and  promis- 
ing talent  is  neglected  for  the  pursuit  of  a  more  general 
and  noisy  philanthropy.  The  slums  and  hospitals  are 


A  MEMOIR  63 

now,  among  the  wealthy  classes,  the  rivals  of  art  and 
literature. 

Dexter's  chief  memory  and  associations  with  Bromfield 
Hall  were  as  the  spot  where  his  real  genius  first  disclosed 
itself  and  turned  him  from  painting  to  sculpture.  Had 
he  remained  a  painter,  it  might  have  been  said  that  he 
was  such  from  an  early  incitement  and  emulation  of  his 
friend  Alexander.  When  he  abandoned  it  for  a  profession 
toward  which  he  had  never  looked,  it  is  evident  there 
was  in  him  a  genuine  art-instinct  and  capacity  for  a 
particular  line  of  work  for  which  painting  was  but  a 
preparation.  I  venture  to  think  that  in  some  respects 
blacksmithing  was  the  more  profitable  preliminary  to 
sculpture. 

In  memory  of  all  its  glad  and  unhappy  days,  Dexter 
left  on  the  wall  of  his  first  studio  some  verses  expressive 
of  his  feelings,  which  have  been  preserved  and  are  here 
printed :  — 

Is  this  the  place  where  once  there  came 

Those  strange  imaginings, 
Those  mimic  wreaths  of  crowning  fame 

Borne  on  delusive  wings 
Along  thy  dark  and  sombre  wall, 

Old  Hall? 

Thy  cornice  broad  and  ceiling  high 

Seem  toned  with  melancholy ; 
The  aspiration  and  the  sigh, 

Though  sometimes  breathed  in  folly, 
Ascending  found  thy  place  too  small, 

Old  Hall. 


64  HENRY  DEXTEE 

Thy  windows  looking  to  the  north  — 

Always  a  lovely  light  — 
Forbade  all  powers  to  tempt  me  forth 

By  keeping  far  from  sight 
Those  views  that  might  the  mind  enthrall, 

Old  Hall. 

Thy  votary,  art,  tried  here  awhile 

All  forms  to  limn,  to  paint 
(While  nature  sat  with  pleasing  smile), 

Of  sinner  and  of  saint ; 
The  effort  hung  against  thy  wall, 

Old  Hall. 

Oh,  who  can  tell  what  thou  hast  known, 

The  secrets  thou  art  keeping  ? 
But  must  thou  speak  ?    Then  truly  own, 

When  I  am  silent  sleeping, 
What  thou  hast  seen  or  heard  —  tell  all, 

Old  Hall. 

He  had  not  been  long  in  his  new  studio  on  Tremont 
Row  when  Charles  Dickens  made  his  first  visit  to  this 
country,  in  1842.  He  sat  to  Dexter  for  a  bust.  There  was 
a  very  interesting  notice  of  this  sitting  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly "  for  October,  1870,  contributed  by  Dickens'  pri- 
vate secretary,  G.  P.  Putnam,  which  is  here  reprinted.  The 
scene  as  described  was  on  the  first  morning  that  Mr.  Put- 
nam began  his  duties  as  secretary,  and  took  place  at  the 
Tremont  House,  Boston's  most  frequented  hotel  about 
1842. 

"  On  Friday  morning  I  was  there  at  nine  o'clock,  the 
time  appointed.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dickens  had  their  meals 


A  MEMOIR  65 

in  their  own  rooms,  and  the  table  was  spread  for  break- 
fast. Soon  they  came  in,  and,  after  a  cheerful  greeting, 
I  took  my  place  at  a  side-table,  and  wrote  as  he  ate  his 
breakfast,  and  meanwhile  conversed  with  Mrs.  Dickens, 
opened  his  letters,  and  dictated  his  answers  to  me. 

"  In  one  corner  of  the  room  Dexter,  the  sculptor,  was 
earnestly  at  work  modelling  a  bust  of  Mr.  Dickens. 
Several  others  of  the  most  eminent  artists  of  our  country 
had  urgently  requested  Mr.  Dickens  to  sit  to  them  for 
his  picture  and  bust,  but  having  consented  to  do  so  to 
Alexander  and  Dexter,  he  was  obliged  to  refuse  all  others 
for  want  of  time. 

"  While  Mr.  Dickens  ate  his  breakfast,  read  his  letters, 
and  dictated  the  answers,  Dexter  was  watching  with  the 
utmost  earnestness  the  play  of  every  feature,  and  compar- 
ing his  model  with  the  original.  Often  during  the  meal 
he  would  come  to  Dickens  with  a  solemn,  business-like 
air,  stoop  down  and  look  at  him  sideways,  pass  round  and 
take  a  look  at  the  other  side  of  his  face,  and  then  go  back 
to  his  model  and  work  away  for  a  few  minutes ;  then 
come  again  and  take  another  look,  and  go  back  to  his 
model ;  soon  he  would  come  again  with  his  calipers  and 
measure  Dickens'  nose,  and  go  and  try  it  on  the  nose  of 
the  model;  then  come  again  with  the  calipers  and  try 
the  width  of  the  temples,  or  the  distance  from  the  nose 
to  the  chin,  and  back  again  to  his  work,  eagerly  shaping 
and  correcting  his  model.  The  whole  soul  of  the  artist 
was  engaged  in  his  task,  and  the  result  was  a  splendid 
bust  of  the  great  author.  Mr.  Dickens  was  highly  pleased 
with  it,  and  repeatedly  alluded  to  it  during  his  stay  as  a 
very  successful  work  of  art. 

6 


66  HENRY  DEXTER 

"Alexander's  picture  and  Dexter's  bust  of  Dickens 
should  be  exhibited  at  this  time,  that  those  who  never  saw 
him  in  his  young  days  may  know  exactly  how  he  looked. 
The  bust  by  Dexter  has  the  rare  merit  of  action,  and  in 
every  respect  represents  the  features,  attitude  and  look  of 
Charles  Dickens." 

How  it  impressed  Mrs.  Dickens  may  be  seen  from  a 
letter  which  she  addressed  to  the  artist  soon  after  her 
arrival  in  New  York :  — 

MY  DEAR  MB.  DEXTER,  —  I  did  not  see  you  before  I  left 
Boston,  and  had  not  an  opportunity  of  expressing  to  you  how 
much  I  was  delighted  with  your  bust  of  my  husband,  which  I 
think  is  a  beautiful  likeness.  I  should  much  like  our  English 
friends  to  see  it,  and  hope  for  an  early  cast. 

CATHERINE  DICKENS. 

I  will  also  add  here  a  confirmation  of  the  good  opinion 
concerning  this  bust  by  Prof.  C.  C.  Felton,  one  of  Dickens' 
most  intimate  friends  in  this  country,  in  a  little  note  to  the 
sculptor. 

"  Ever  since  I  saw  your  admirable  bust  of  Charles  Dickens, 
the  best  and  most  characteristic  likeness  that  has  ever  been 
made  of  him,  I  have  considered  you  the  best,  or  certainly  one 
of  the  best  portrait-sculptors  of  our  time." 

Copies  of  this  bust  were  on  exhibition  in  all  the  prin- 
cipal cities  of  the  country,  and  many  were  sold,  especially 
in  New  York  City  and  Philadelphia.  Wherever  Dickens 
gave  readings,  there  were  agencies  for  the  sale  of  it. 
Dickens'  presence  advertised  it,  and  that  in  turn  adver- 
tised Dickens.  Dickens'  strongly  marked  features  made 


A  MEMOIR  67 

an  unusually  good  subject  to  put  into  portrait-sculpture. 
Here  is  the  author  with  all  his  energy,  fun  and  pathos 
concentrated  in  the  features.  It  was  exhibited  in  London 
and  won  applause  from  the  art  critics.  But  portrait-sculp- 
ture has  this  sad  impediment  to  an  artist's  permanent  repu- 
tation; namely,  the  great  man  of  to-day  is  not  the  great 
man  of  to-morrow,  and  too  often  they  sink  into  obscurity 
together.  Marble  nor  bronze  nor  canvas  can  long  delay 
the  extinction  of  the  too  fond  estimates  of  our  contempo- 
raries. And  yet  it  is  the  vanity  and  pride  of  men  that 
make  possible  the  existence  of  the  artist  until  he  can  free 
himself  from  their  trammels  and  give  himself  wholly  to 
ideals  and  beauty.  It  was  toward  these  that  Dexter  con- 
stantly worked,  constantly  longed  to  devote  himself. 
Simple  man  that  he  was,  faithful  to  every  duty  and  obliga- 
tion, he  had  to  do  what  his  hand  found  to  do,  and  wait  as 
he  could  for  the  coveted  opportunity  to  choose  his  own 
subjects.  It  was  early  recognized  that  he  had  a  remark- 
able felicity  in  obtaining  a  lifelike  presentation  of  the  living 
face.  As  to  pose  there  can  hardly  be  such  a  thing  in  a 
bust.  Form  is  the  chief  object ;  and  through  that  must  be 
expressed  whatever  characteristics  individualize  the  subject. 
Wanting  the  light  of  the  eyes,  the  presence  of  which  in  the 
painted  portrait  gives  the  spectator  some  idea  of  the  in- 
ward spirit,  marble  must  depend  on  such  other  accessories 
as  art  can  supply  for  producing  effects.  The  chief  differ- 
ence between  sculpture  and  painting  is  the  advantage  of 
the  round  over  the  flat  surface.  On  this  account  a  statue 
seems  more  real  than  a  canvas.  We  can  walk  around  it ; 
we  see  behind  the  face.  We  see  solids  instead  of  surfaces, 
and  behold  the  highest  of  all  beauty,  the  beauty  of  form. 


68  HENRY   DEXTER 

In  his  new  studio  Dexter  continued  making  busts  of 
Boston's  merchant  princes  and  distinguished  professional 
men.  Most  of  them  were  cut  in  marble,  and  are  now  in 
private  houses,  or  in  the  public  rooms  of  various  institutions 
and  libraries.  They  cannot  be  said  to  be  entirely  forgot- 
ten men,  for  Boston  cherishes  the  memory  of  her  prominent 
citizens  beyond  most  cities,  and  ever  and  anon  exhibits  her 
marbles  and  canvases  with  commendable  pride.  But  this 
generation  has  to  be  taught  who  and  what  they  were.  Let 
us  name  some  of  them,  bring  them  from  their  hiding-places 
and  remove  the  dust  for  their  own  sakes  no  less  than  for 
that  of  the  sculptor.  I  have  already  mentioned  several. 
There  was  Mayor  Eliot,  public-spirited  and  generous,  chiefly 
recalled  now  as  the  father  of  the  present  head  of  Harvard 
University.  As  this  was  Dexter's  first  attempt  at  marble, 
he  did  not  well  know  how  to  fix  the  price  of  the  work. 
Mayor  Eliot  thought  the  price  named  too  little,  and  made 
a  liberal  addition.  Samuel  Appleton  was  another  of  his 
generous  patrons,  one  of  the  city's  wealthiest  men,  founder 
of  a  renowned  family,  and  father  of  that  Tom  Appleton 
who  made  Boston's  bon  mots  for  many  a  year ;  the  friend 
of  all  writers  and  artists ;  practical  friend  of  the  latter, 
buying  their  pictures  and  sending  them  to  Europe  to 
study ;  a  kind  of  Beacon  Street  Msecenas  of  his  city  and 
time.  Then  there  were  the  Lawrences,  Amos  and  Abbott, 
for  both  of  whom  Dexter  made  busts.  Both  were  cotton 
manufacturers,  —  one,  Amos,  much  given  to  philanthropy, 
the  other  more  devoted  to  public  affairs.  Edmund  Dwight 
was  another  cotton  manufacturer,  founder  of  towns  and  vil- 
lages on  the  Connecticut  River.  Robert  C.  Winthrop's  bust 
should  not  be  missing  from  the  list,  as  he  was  accounted 


A  MEMOIR  69 

one  of  Boston's  ablest  scholars  and  statesmen.  Dr.  Warren, 
Alvin  Adams,  Mr.  Chickering,  E.  R.  Mudge,  and  James  L. 
Little,  men  of  eminence  in  various  ways,  all  sat  for  portrait- 
busts.  His  most  distinguished  patrons  in  Cambridge  were 
George  and  Isaac  Livermore;  the  former  a  merchant  in 
wool  and  a  great  collector  of  the  ancient  documents  of 
American  history,  a  man  of  many  virtues,  beloved  by 
everybody.  Dexter  made  the  busts  of  two  Presidents  of 
Harvard  College,  —  Walker,  the  good,  and  Felton,  the 
jovial  Greek.  Felton  had  a  picturesque  head  of  curly 
black  hair ;  he  was  of  conspicuous  height  and  solid  frame, 
and,  barring  his  glasses,  was  a  statuesque  figure  which 
marble  only  needed  to  imitate.  Walker,  who  immediately 
preceded  Felton  as  head  of  the  college,  not  yet  a  univer- 
sity, had  a  most  placid  face,  and  seemed  without  and  within 
a  man  "moulded  in  colossal  calm."  It  is  inconceivable 
that  he  could  ever  have  experienced  a  temptation,  which 
profited  much  to  us  young  sinners  of  his  reign.  Perhaps 
because  he  was  what  he  looked  to  be,  his  bust,  more  than 
most,  conveys  an  excellent  impression  of  his  serene  dignity 
and  his  pious  and  benignant  nature. 


70  HENRY  DEXTER 


IV 

HIS  VIEWS  OF  ART 

DEXTER,  as  has  been  related,  had  an  instinctive  taste 
for  art  from  his  earliest  childhood.  He  thought 
much  ahout  it  before  any  knowledge  or  observation  was 
his.  Wonder,  admiration  and  imagination  came  first. 
Long  apprenticeship  on  a  farm  where  everything  was 
home-made,  and  then  many  more  years  at  the  trade  of 
blacksmithing,  had  taught  him  the  use  of  tools,  had  in- 
creased his  natural  skill,  and  trained  his  eye  in  those 
requirements  of  the  forge  which  more  than  in  almost  any 
other  kind  of  craft  demand  a  quick  and  exact  perception 
of  shape.  When  the  iron  is  hot,  there  is  no  time  for 
measurements  with  rule  or  dividers,  but  the  blow  that  will 
give  the  metal  the  required  form  must  be  delivered 
instantly.  Hence  the  training  of  eye  and  hand ;  hence  the 
hand  must  obey  the  eye  until  they  work  as  one.  Can  it 
be  doubted  what  a  useful  preparation  this  was  when  the 
iron  was  exchanged  for  marble,  the  anvil  and  hammer  for 
mallet  and  chisel?  But  something  more  is  needed  to 
make  a  sculptor.  That  something  is  genius,  which,  how- 
ever much  it  may  be  discussed  and  defined,  remains 
incalculable.  It  is  a  mystery  for  which  we  should  be 
thankful  in  this  age  when  man's  soul  is  about  to  be  dis- 
sected and  put  in  the  crucible.  Genius,  however,  has  some 


A  MEMOIR  71 

outward  tokens  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  It  does  not 
have  to  think  about  itself,  nor  plan  nor  study  overmuch ; 
it  does  the  thing  instinctively,  and  has  seldom  any  self- 
estimate  or  sense  of  the  excellence  of  its  own  work.  I  am 
aware  this  is  the  old  Platonic  theory,  but  as  yet  there  is 
none  better.  If  it  be  abnormal,  a  disease,  as  some  recent 
psychologists  claim,  I  would  it  were  infectious.  Modern 
artists  are  given  over  to  theories  and  schools ;  they  think 
and  reason ;  and  the  crowd  of  amateurs  keeps  step  with  the 
schools  and  the  masters.  In  Dexter's  time  there  were  no 
schools  or  masters  in  this  country.  He  sculptured  as  he 
had  blacksmithed  and  painted,  with  little  training,  and 
none  of  the  modern  aids.  He  had  a  native  intelligence  on 
which  he  mainly  relied,  like  the  fish  of  the  deeper  waters 
of  the  ocean  that  make  the  light  by  which  they  see.  He 
gave  himself  to  the  most  assiduous  practice ;  and,  reckoning 
the  years  of  his  labors  and  their  results,  he  was  one  of  the 
most  industrious  artists  that  ever  lived.  By  nature  a  poet 
as  well  as  a  painter  and  sculptor,  he  came  to  have  a  clear 
conception  of  the  relation  of  all  the  fine  arts,  and  to  know 
how  deep  in  the  heart  of  man  is  the  chord  to  which  their 
magic  equally  responds.  In  his  own  poetic  attempts,  how- 
ever imperfect  they  are  in  form,  there  is  the  soul  of  the 
true  poet.  A  lover  of  nature,  he  looked  to  her  for  instruc- 
tion as  well  as  inspiration.  He  studied  her  forms  and  pro- 
portions, —  forms  in  detail,  and  proportions  in  the  masses 
of  forests  and  mountains  as  well  as  in  the  human  figure. 
"The  first  lesson,"  he  says,  "an  art  pupil  receives  is  to 
study  nature.  But  how  and  where?  Is  it  necessary  to 
go  to  Europe  ?  We  have  beauty  of  scenery  and  grandeur, 
sufficient  for  a  lifetime  study,  and  far  better  than  copy- 


72  HENRY  DEXTER 

ing  the  classic  fragments  which  too  often  paralyze  any 
originality  which  might  have  been  developed  in  the  quiet 
nakedness  of  a  secluded  studio.  Go  to  Europe  to  become 
an  artist!  As  well  might  the  son  of  Erin  go  to  Connecticut 
and  expect  there  to  become  a  Yankee.  If  that  which  he 
wishes  to  be,  be  not  in  him,  it  is  in  vain  to  vary  his  lati- 
tude. .  .  .  Unless  the  sculptor  has  the  image  of  beauty 
within  himself,  and  knows  where  in  the  marble  he  can 
touch  it  with  his  magic  chisel,  he  may  chisel  all  the  quarry 
in  vain.  Purely  ideal  works  of  sculpture  in  this  country 
must  go  begging;  for  the  present  portrait-sculpture  and 
busts  are  the  sculptor's  sole  dependence." 

Yet  withal  he  had  an  idea  that  statues  and  busts  should 
be  something  more  than  mere  likenesses,  —  something,  if 
possible,  between  the  ideal  and  real,  —  a  likeness,  but  with 
as  much  nobility  as  the  subject's  character  would  warrant, 
not  as  the  eyes  see  him,  but  what  the  artist  and  public 
know  him  to  be.  As  for  the  artist  and  poet,  much  is 
spoilt  when  they  find  anything  that  actually  resembles 
their  imaginings.  For  rich  and  free  productivity,  they 
must  dwell  in  an  ideal  world  of  their  own  creation. 
This  is  in  harmony  with  Greek  ideas  concerning  art.  The 
Thebans  enacted  a  law  commanding  artists  to  make  their 
copies  more  beautiful  than  the  originals,  if  possible,  and 
never  less  so.  In  a  portrait-statue  there  may  be  idealiza- 
tion, but  likeness  should  predominate.  Judges  in  the 
Olympic  games  allowed  a  statue  to  every  conqueror,  which 
was  intended  to  celebrate  the  event  as  much  as  the  actor, 
and  a  portrait-statue  was  only  permitted  to  him  who  had 
been  thrice  victorious.  The  Greeks,  by  strict  laws,  pro- 
tected the  principles  of  beauty,  and  thereby  promoted  its 


A  MEMOIR  73 

manifestation  in  the  generation  of  the  race.  Accustomed 
to  see  none  but  beautiful  objects,  their  children  were  born 
with  beautiful  minds  in  perfect  bodies.1 

Dexter  was  ambitious  also  to  adhere  to  national  char- 
acter. "But  what,"  he  asks,  "represents  our  national 
character?  Have  we  a  distinctive  face,  a  peculiar  cos- 
tume ?  "  He  would  have  all  representative  of  our  republi- 
can institutions.  The  unadorned,  the  undraped  marble 
comes  to  be  at  length,  in  the  mind  of  every  great  artist, 
the  highest  conception  of  the  aims  and  accomplishment  of 
sculpture.  Not  an  ell  must  be  covered.  The  excellence 
of  form  must  be  shown  in  its  purity.  Herein  it  parts 
company  with  painting,  and  ever  more  widely.  The  un- 
draped human  figure  on  canvas  is  generally  wanting  in 
pudency;  while  in  sculpture  it  is  only  the  more  chaste 
because  it  represents  not  individual  but  abstract  beauty. 
Devoid  of  color,  and  of  expression  dependent  upon  color, 
marble  conveys  no  idea  of  fleshliness.  Both  its  whiteness 
and  texture  deprive  it  of  any  suggestion  of  warmth  or 
life.  The  painter  requires  all  possible  accessories,  and 
then  does  not  always  succeed  in  hiding  an  ugly  or  vacuous 
nudity,  nor  in  adding  anything  to  intrinsic  grace  and 
loveliness. 

"  The  sinful  painter  drapes  his  goddess  warm, 
Because  she  still  is  naked,  being  dressed ; 
The  godlike  sculptor  will  not  so  deform 
Beauty,  which  limbs  and  flesh  enough  invest." 

Dexter's  efforts  in  sculpturing  ideal  or  mythological 
figures,  when  he  had  time  and  opportunity,  gave  him 

1  See  Lessing's  Laocobn. 


74  HENRY  DEXTER 

unbounded  delight.  It  was  then  he  could  rhapsodize  and 
completely  satisfy  the  aspirations  of  his  poetic  nature.  He 
was  not  afraid  to  address  poems  to  his  own  creations,  feel- 
ing, as  all  creative  power  must,  that  whatever  is  called 
into  life  has  then  a  separate  existence  quite  apart  from  the 
workman,  and  is  entitled  to  be  honored  by  him.  There  is 
no  egotism  in  this,  but  rather  a  recognition  that  the 
sculptor  himself  is  only  a  finer  clay  in  the  hands  of  a 
diviner  artist.  His  attitude  is  not  that  of  a  creator  of  his 
own  work,  but  merely  the  instrument  used  in  its  creation. 
It  is  said  that  those  who  heard  Tennyson  read  his  own 
poems,  and  comment  on  their  beauty,  are  agreed  that  it  was 
such  a  natural,  ingenuous  manner  in  him  that  they  felt  in 
it  nothing  strange  or  egotistical.  It  was  consonant  with 
Dexter's  simple,  unsophisticated  nature  to  enjoy  the  work 
of  his  own  hands  as  one  does  his  own  children,  which  are 
his  and  not  his.  He  has  not  given  them  life ;  he  has  only 
transmitted  it ;  and  this  is  what  the  artist  does. 

Dexter's  life  as  an  artist  was  solitary ;  as  yet  there  were 
few  critics,  no  art  journals,  no  schools,  and  few  collections 
of  paintings  and  sculptures.  The  students  of  sculpture 
went  to  Europe,  and  generally  remained  there.  Painting 
was  mostly  confined  to  portraits,  and  the  painters,  having 
exhausted  one  city,  betook  themselves  to  another.  I  have 
said  there  were  no  art  critics.  In  all  the  notices  of  works  of 
art  in  Dexter's  time  which  I  have  seen  there  is  unstinted 
and  indiscriminate  praise.  There  was  a  great  desire  to  en- 
courage art,  and  perhaps  this  was  as  good  a  way  as  any. 
Its  practical  encouragement  had  to  come  from  private 
sources;  neither  the  general  government  nor  the  States 
afforded  patronage  to  any  of  the  arts,  except  an  occasional 


A  MEMOIR  75 

order  to  architects.  Dexter  was  a  pioneer,  and  with  his 
views  of  the  advantage  of  staying  at  home  and  building  up 
an  American  art,  he  was  left  to  do  the  work,  to  carry  out 
and  to  illustrate  his  views  pretty  much  alone.  The  time 
is  not  yet  for  the  appreciation  of  what  he  achieved  in  this 
direction.  It  may  be  depressing  to  think  of  him  toiling 
in  obscure  studios  in  Boston  and  Cambridge  with  one 
great  idea,  to  show  that  America  might  be  the  home  of 
art,  while  his  fellow-artists  were  flourishing  in  Rome  and 
Florence  amid  classic  models  and  societies  where  art  was 
appreciated  and  honored ;  but  in  the  end  it  will  be  found 
his  way  was  right,  and  theirs  mistaken.  To  make  another 
Apollo  or  Venus  is  superfluous.  They  were  good  in  their 
time,  done  once  for  all,  representing  the  highest  flight  of 
idealism  of  a  given  period,  and  had  better  be  broken  up 
than  breed  ineffectual  imitators.  Stay  at  home,  you  who 
think  you  can  paint  or  sculpture,  mould  a  farmer-soldier 
at  the  Concord  Bridge ;  or,  if  you  cannot  do  as  much,  or 
find  as  stirring  a  subject,  take  an  humbler  one,  as  did  J. 
G.  Brown,  who  has  devoted  his  brush  to  the  apotheosis  of 
the  bootblack  and  newsboy  of  New  York.  If  we  have  not 
gods  and  goddesses,  we  have  genre  subjects,  and  a  few 
heroes  and  heroines,  heroic  scenes  and  events. 

Having  given  Dexter's  views  sometimes  in  his  own 
words  and  sometimes  in  my  own,  I  will  now  continue  the 
narrative  of  his  life  and  works,  briefly  mentioning  such  of 
the  latter  as  mark  the  more  important  steps  in  his  career. 

In  1840  he  made  a  bust  of  his  mother;  and  one  has  to  stop 
a  moment  and  try  to  think  what  must  have  been  her  reflec- 
tions at  seeing  this  son  of  hers,  to  whom  she  had  forbidden 


76  HENRY  DEXTER 

all  the  arts,  now  a  sculptor,  modelling  her  face  which  he 
had  already  painted.  Further  to  invalidate  her  motherly 
warnings,  it  only  needed  that  he  should  celebrate  her  in 
verse.  But  mothers  are  easily  forgiven,  and  they  forgive 
still  more  readily.  We  know  that  the  cause  of  their  infre- 
quent mistakes  is  excess  of  affection.  They  can  be  proud 
of  their  disobedient  sons  when  by  contrary  courses  they 
achieve  distinction. 

In  the  same  year  he  made  the  bust  of  Marcus  Morton, 
Democratic  governor  of  Massachusetts  by  one  vote,  Whig- 
gery  for  some  reason  being  out  of  usual  favor.  In  the 
next  year  he  put  in  marble  the  sturdy  head  of  John  Davis 
of  Worcester,  one  of  the  most  popular  of  Massachusetts 
governors,  as  is  shown  from  the  fact  that  thirty  duplicates 
in  plaster  were  ordered.  He  had  not  yet  entirely  given 
up  the  brush,  and  this  same  year  there  was  exhibited  at 
the  Boston  Athenaeum  a  painting  of  the  artist's  two  young 
daughters.  From  1840  to  1845  I  find  that  he  made  more 
than  twenty-five  busts  and  statues  of  living  subjects,  and 
one  of  the  Magdalene,  his  first  attempt  in  the  ideal.  In 
the  next  year,  1846,  he  made  a  bust  of  another  Massachu- 
setts worthy,  Governor  Briggs, —  re-elected  for  seven  years, 
—  six  other  busts,  and  an  elaborate  mural  monument  in 
marble,  representing  Grief.  From  the  suggestions  of  a 
Boston  gentleman,  George  C.  Shattuck,  he  undertook  in 
1847  to  represent  in  marble  a  purely  American  subject, 
The  Backwoodsman.  A  sum  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  be- 
gin the  work  was  raised  among  his  Boston  patrons.  When 
completed  it  was  exhibited  at  the  Boston  Athenaeum.  After- 
ward it  was  removed  to  the  sculptor's  studio,  and  further 
labor  was  bestowed  upon  it.  It  is  now  at  Wellesley 


A  MEMOIR  77 

College,  having  been  presented  to  that  institution  by  the 
artist's  daughter,  Mrs.  Anna  E.  Douglass.  Dexter  was 
always  most  successful  in  modelling  children,  perhaps  in 
none  more  so  than  in  those  of  J.  P.  Cushing's  son  and 
daughter.  Although  portrait-statues,  they  have  much 
ideal  grace  and  beauty.  The  girl  is  holding  a  book,  and 
the  statue  was  called,  when  exhibited,  The  First  Lesson  ; 
that  of  the  little  boy,  who  is  watching  a  squirrel,  was 
called  Observation.  He  next  made  in  marble  four  busts  of 
other  members  of  the  Gushing  family,  in  half  size,  which 
were  much  commended  for  their  classic  beauty. 

From  1850  to  1856  he  executed  twenty-one  busts,  besides 
an  ideal  figure,  The  Yankee  Boy,  one  mural  monument,  and 
a  dog  in  freestone.  The  busts  were  mostly  of  men  and 
women  in  and  around  Boston.  In  the  list  I  observe  one 
of  Miss  C.  F.  Orne,  a  Cambridge  poet,  Anson  Burlingame, 
and  several  once  celebrated  persons.  Many  of  these  were 
duplicated  for  friends,  or  for  institutions  with  which  they 
happened  to  be  connected.  In  this,  the  above  period, 
Dexter  began  his  studies  for  the  statue  of  General  Joseph 
Warren,  the  hero  of  Bunker  Hill,  which  were  completed 
and  the  statue  cut  sometime  before  June,  1857.  It  was 
set  up  and  dedicated  on  the  anniversary  of  the  battle,  June 
17,  1857.  Ten  thousand  people  attended  the  dedication, 
at  which  Edward  Everett  delivered  the  oration,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  paid  an  eloquent  tribute  to  the  statue 
and  its  maker.  The  statue  is  seven  feet  in  height,  and  it 
is  dressed  in  the  costume  of  the  Revolutionary  period, 
modelled  from  a  suit  once  worn  by  John  Hancock.  The 
right  hand  rests  on  his  sword,  and  the  left  is  raised  as 
if  addressing  the  patriot  soldiers.  In  this  work  Dexter 


78  HENRY   DEXTER 

found  what  he  had  always  longed  for,  —  a  purely  American 
subject  in  the  man  and  the  event,  a  hero  at  his  highest 
moment  and  tragic  death,  and  in  every  respect  the  most 
memorable  battle  of  the  Revolution. 

From  the  completion  of  the  statue  of  Warren  to  1859 
he  continued  making  portrait-busts,  among  which  I  notice 
that  of  Henry  Wilson,  a  famous  anti-slavery  agitator,  and 
United  States  Senator  from  Massachusetts  for  many  terms, 
and  later  Vice-President  of  the  United  States. 

In  1857  his  wife  died;  and,  just  before  beginning  a 
tour  through  the  United  States,  he  married  Mrs.  Martha 
Billings,  of  Millbury,  Massachusetts. 

In  1859  Dexter  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  com- 
plete collection  of  busts  of  all  the  State  governors  and  the 
President,  James  Buchanan,  forming,  as  it  were,  an  official 
gallery  of  the  period.  The  Civil  War  was  near  at  hand, 
nearer  indeed  than  anybody  suspected,  and  thus  the 
undertaking  was  more  hazardous  than  Dexter  realized, 
and  at  the  same  time  more  important  than  he  could  have 
foreseen,  as  a  record  of  that  momentous  convulsion.  His 
plan  was  to  visit  the  home  or  official  residence  of  State 
governors  and  model  them  from  life,  cast  them  in  plaster, 
and,  when  desired,  take  orders  for  duplicates  in  plaster 
or  marble,  and  finally  to  secure  some  place  and  some 
purchaser  for  the  entire  collection,  so  that  it  might  be 
shown  and  preserved  as  part  of  the  personal  history  of  the 
country  at  that  date.  He  also  had  hopes  that  the  indi- 
vidual States  would  desire  to  have  a  copy  in  marble  of 
their  governors  for  that  year,  to  be  placed  in  their  several 
capitols.  But  he  expected  to  bear,  and  indeed  did  bear,  all 
the  preliminary  expenses  himself;  and  they  were  not  light, 


A  MEMOIR  79 

considering  that  he  had  to  travel  twenty  thousand  miles 
by  rail,  sea  and  stages,  covering  every  State  then  in  the 
Union  except  Oregon  and  California,  and  pay  his  hotel  bills 
and  transportation  of  materials  for  modelling  and  casting. 
It  was  an  immense  and  difficult  enterprise,  unique  in  plan, 
and  almost  as  uncertain  in  detail  as  a  battle,  which,  how- 
ever well  ordered,  is  liable  to  unforeseen  exigencies  and 
accidents.  It  was  also  fraught  with  some  personal  peril, 
of  which  Dexter  at  the  time  seems  to  have  been  happily 
unconscious.  Northerners  were  looked  upon  with  sus- 
picion, and  were  exposed  to  insult  and  assault. 

The  South  was  ripe  for  rebellion,  and  the  sculptor  might 
in  some  places  be  mistaken  for  a  spy  or  an  anti-slavery 
agitator.  But  Dexter  shared  in  the  general  blindness  of 
the  time,  and  confided  that  the  political  party  to  which  he 
belonged  would  hold  the  Union  peacefully  together.  So 
he  went  forth  with  the  trustfulness  of  a  child,  and  the 
enthusiasm  which  fifty  years  had  not  quenched,  but  only 
made  more  effectual  by  the  strengthening  of  his  energy 
and  his  will.  As  it  turned  out,  his  collection  when  com- 
pleted had  an  unsuspected  value  of  great  historic  interest. 
Some  of  the  governors  who  happened  to  be  in  office  in  1859 
and  1860  were  remarkable  men.  The  crisis  in  our  civil 
affairs  gave  them  an  opportunity  to  show  their  strength 
or  their  weakness.  A  few  of  them,  by  foresight  and 
prudence,  certainly  saved  the  general  government  from 
immediate  overthrow  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion. 
Several  of  the  ablest  became  Lincoln's  counsellors  and 
military  leaders;  and  their  general  activity  in  furnishing 
troops  for  the  army,  and  in  numerous  other  ways  holding 
up  the  hands  of  the  hard-pressed  government  at  Washing- 


80  HENRY  DEXTER 

ton,  deserved  statues  of  gold.  But  their  place  in  history 
was  not  yet  won  or  even  suspected  when  Dexter  set  out 
on  his  travels  to  model  the  busts  of  these  unconscious 
worthies,  —  men  hitherto  hardly  known  beyond  the  confines 
of  their  several  States,  soon,  however,  to  be  distinguished 
everywhere  as  the  "War  Governors"  of  the  North  and 
South  land. 

He  went  forth  armed  with  letters  of  general  introduction 
from  Edward  Everett  and  others,  a  few  tools,  and  a  barrel 
of  clay.  These  letters  of  introduction  simply  mentioned 
his  purpose,  and  commended  him  as  a  skilful  artist.  When 
he  had  made  the  bust  of  one  governor,  he  obtained  from 
him  an  introduction  to  the  next  he  intended  to  visit.  In 
this  way  his  path  was  usually  made  smooth,  and  on  such 
flattering  errands  courtesies  were  not  wanting  on  the  part 
of  State  officials.  Often  he  made  his  home  in  the  families 
of  the  governors  while  at  work,  and  thus  acquired  friends, 
and  had  uncommon  opportunities  of  observing  the  manners, 
customs  and  ideas  of  the  better  classes  in  different  sections 
of  the  country.  In  the  progress  of  his  work  he  had  also 
the  advantage  of  the  suggestions  and  criticisms  by  the 
immediate  friends  of  his  subject,  and  was  able  to  study 
him  at  other  times  than  when  in  the  sitter's  chair.  He 
seems  to  have  endeared  himself  to  these  official  families 
wherever  he  went,  as  was  to  be  expected  in  a  man  so 
naturally  modest,  genial  and  intelligent.  But,  withal, 
there  were  many  trials  incident  to  his  undertaking.  He 
was  never  sure  of  finding  his  governor  at  home,  or  at 
leisure  to  give  him  the  necessary  number  of  sittings.  On 
one  occasion  he  found  a  governor  just  dead.  Others  were 
rude,  and  had  to  be  conciliated;  and,  strange  as  it  may 


A  MEMOIR  81 

seem,  some  few  did  not  think  so  well  of  themselves  as  to 
wish  to  have  perpetuated  their  gubernatorial  heads.  The 
prevailing  persuasion  in  such  cases  was  that  the  governor 
of  an  adjoining  State  had  ordered  a  bust  in  plaster  or 
marble,  or  the  State  had  ordered  one  for  its  capitol.  There 
were  occasionally  humorous  experiences ;  and  besides  the 
opportunities  for  a  close  study  of  official  personages  and 
their  families  and  subordinates,  his  long  journeys  on  the 
rivers  and  lakes  of  the  West  and  South  and  overland 
stages  furnished  an  ample  and  varied  field  for  observation 
of  human  nature  in  many  new  and  strange  guises.  Every- 
thing, in  fact,  was  new  and  strange  to  him  who  had  seldom 
been  out  of  New  England:  the  scenery,  the  men  and 
women,  their  manner  of  life,  their  food,  their  characteris- 
tics of  speech,  and  their  religious  and  political  opinions. 
In  respect  to  the  latter,  he  found  perfect  unanimity  in 
hatred  of  the  North,  and  an  ardent  desire  to  be  separated 
from  it. 

In  his  home  letters  he  exclaims  much  against  the  pre- 
vailing diet  of  pork,  and  says  that  it  was  impossible  to 
escape  in  public  or  private  houses  the  fumes  of  tobacco, 
the  tobacco  chewers  and  whiskey  drinkers.  On  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  he  was  inclined  to  be  reticent,  and  I  gather 
the  impression  he  wished  others  to  be.  For  the  most  part 
he  saw  its  better  side,  and  shut  his  eyes  upon  its  evils. 
Like  many  other  good  and  true  men  of  his  time,  old  enough 
to  have  heard  in  their  youth  what  our  independence  had 
cost,  he  was  willing  to  compromise  for  the  sake  of  the 
Union,  and  prepared  to  sacrifice  almost  everything  for  its 
preservation.  Thus  his  political  principles  and  his  natural 
conciliatory  spirit  carried  him  easily  through  the  enterprise 


82  HENRY  DEXTER 

he  had  undertaken.  He  felt  the  danger  to  art  and  to 
civilization  in  the  agitations  which  disturbed  the  country 
during  the  ten  years  previous  to  the  rebellion.  As  yet  he 
had  no  idea  of  the  outcome,  and  little  felt  while  travelling 
from  one  Southern  State  to  another  that  he  was  in  the 
enemy's  country.  He  enjoyed  the  surprises  of  the  scenery, 
the  novel  habits  of  Southern  and  Western  men,  and  found 
time  and  opportunities  for  many  acute  philosophical 
reflections. 

I  shall  accompany  him  on  his  travels,  condensing  as 
much  as  possible  the  record  he  has  left  in  some  two  hun- 
dred pages  of  letters  and  notes.  I  find  one  brief  memo- 
randum with  which  this  part  of  the  narrative  may  begin : 
"One  governor  treated  me  like  a  barber  come  to  shave 
him,  showing  me  no  attention  at  all.  One  made  a  dinner 
party  for  me,  inviting  all  the  distinguished  men  of  the 
State.  Four  were  very  generous.  One  declared  he  would 
never  sit  for  his  bust;  but  he  did,  and  proved  the  best 
man  I  had.  Nine  were  indifferent,  but  treated  me  with 
respect.  Sixteen  did  everything  they  could  for  me  in 
the  way  of  attentions.  Three  were  bachelors;  six  were 
widowers;  and  two  had  been  married  three  times." 

In  this  epitome  of  the  artist  in  the  midst  of  the  gover- 
nors one  has  a  glimpse  of  his  difficulties  and  of  their  varied 
dispositions. 

The  first  bust  in  the  group  was  that  of  James  Buchanan, 
President  from  1856  to  1860;  and  we  find  Dexter  in 
Washington  on  a  June  morning  in  1859,  seeking  for  an 
interview  with  the  President.  He  was  soon  established 
in  a  room  in  the  White  House,  where  he  set  up  his  clay, 
and  the  President  gave  him  daily  sittings,  punctually  at 


A  MEMOIR  83 

eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  No  bust  of  him  had  ever 
been  made  before,  and  he  was  surprised  that  an  artist  com- 
ing from  Massachusetts,  where  he  was  so  unpopular, 
should  wish  to  make  one.  "We  have  some  crazy  heads," 
Dexter  remarked.  "All  are,"  said  the  President.  He 
describes  his  sitter  as  six  feet  and  one  inch  in  height,  with 
a  double  chin.  He  dined  with  the  President  on  one  occa- 
sion, and  appears  to  have  been  treated  with  great  cordiality, 
walking  and  talking  with  him;  but  there  is  no  record  of 
what  was  said.  The  President  talked,  as  great  person- 
ages are  wont,  on  commonplaces,  —  and  he  was  never 
credited  with  being  a  genius.  He  could  not  save  the 
country  from  secession,  and  did  not  try  very  hard.  His 
policy  was  for  conciliation  and  compromise,  for  the  "  con- 
quer your  prejudices,"  as  Webster  had  advised. 

Governor  Buckingham,  of  Connecticut,  was  his  first  sub- 
ject among  the  State  governors.  His  home  was  in  Norwich, 
and  the  artist's  impressions  were  more  of  the  beauty  of 
that  ancient  town  than  of  the  people  he  met.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  I  can  only  refer  briefly  and  in  their  order  to 
the  visits  he  made  to  the  governors  of  the  States.  I  am 
taking  my  materials  for  this  portion  of  Dexter's  life  from 
diaries  and  family  letters,  in  which  he  gives  very  particu- 
lar descriptions  of  the  situation  and  points  of  interest  in 
the  towns,  cities,  and  country  through  which  he  passed. 
To  give  them  in  full  would  make  a  quite  complete  itinerary 
of  the  United  States. 

He  proceeded  then  to  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  to 
the  hospitable  house  of  Gov.  Ichabod  Goodwin,  the  stanch 
old  Whig,  owner  of  ships,  himself  long  a  sailor,  the  pride 
of  the  little  city  by  the  sea.  His  figure  was  that  of  a  solid 


84  HENRY   DEXTER 

square  post;  but  the  artist  had  to  do  only  with  a  face 
beaming  with  benevolence,  firmness,  and  a  quaint,  old- 
fashioned  humor.  With  his  honors  thick  upon  him,  and 
driving  the  finest  span  of  horses  in  the  town,  he  was 
through  and  through  a  sailor. 

On  arrival  at  his  residence,  the  artist  found  the  next 
governor,  Turner,  of  Rhode  Island,  absent  at  a  clam-bake, 
as  was  natural  in  the  home  of  the  Rhode  Island  clam. 
Governor  Turner  was  a  merchant  in  moderate  circum- 
stances, and  his  house  was  so  low  studded  the  sculptor 
could  find  no  room  in  it  suitable  for  modelling,  so  he 
had  to  secure  one  in  the  hotel  where  he  was  stopping. 
He  describes  his  bed  here  as  just  wide  enough  for  one 
sleeper,  but  not  long  enough,  and  the  room  but  three  times 
the  width  of  the  bed.  He  saw  a  great  deal  of  Republi- 
can simplicity  in  this  town  of  Warren,  notably  in  the 
house  and  household  of  the  governor.  One  thing  inter- 
ested him  more  than  anything  else,  —  it  was  one  of 
Alexander's  earliest  pictures,  a  portrait  of  the  governor's 
wife.  He  takes  his  leave  of  this  place,  saying  that  he 
had  secured  a  piece  of  the  rock  on  which  Roger  Williams 
landed. 

He  is  next  in  North  Bennington,  Vermont,  about  to 
model  the  head  of  Governor  Hall,  who  had  a  peculiar 
face,  but  such  as  was  easy  to  imitate.  Here  he  finds 
more  republican  simplicity  in  a  one-storied  house,  and 
two  meals  on  the  Sabbath.  He  already  anticipates  en- 
larging his  circle  of  acquaintance  and  field  of  obser- 
vation in  pursuing  his  design  of  making  busts  of  all 
the  governors.  At  Bennington  he  was  unusually  active ; 
besides  his  special  work,  he  wrote  a  poem  of  thirty-six 


A  MEMOIR  85 

lines,  and  many  letters,  visited  the  Bennington  battle-field, 
and  admired  the  mountains  and  the  Vermont  sheep. 

October  11,  1859,  he  arrived  in  Albany,  New  York,  to 
model  the  bust  of  Gov.  E.  D.  Morgan,  "  a  man  six  feet 
two  and  a  Cromwell  face."  Mrs.  Morgan  was  disappointed 
in  the  appearance  of  the  artist;  "she  expected  to  see  him 
in  a  long  beard  and  uncombed  hair,  a  slouch  hat  and 
cloak."  He  was  at  once  established  in  the  governor's 
mansion,  and  in  a  few  days  the  bust  was  made,  and  was  so 
satisfactory  that  it  was  ordered  in  marble.  From  Albany 
he  journeyed  to  Augusta,  Maine,  where  Governor  Morrill 
awaited  him.  Here  he  saw  the  new  moon  over  his  right 
shoulder  one  evening,  and  it  was  followed  by  his  usual 
good  luck,  for  the  governor's  family  proved  very  kind 
and  agreeable;  he  enjoyed  fine  home  music,  and  saw  the 
youngest  daughter  pirouette;  and  though  the  governor's 
face  was  hard  to  take,  he  succeeded  by  keeping  him  read- 
ing while  he  handled  the  clay. 

Thus  far  he  had  been  able  to  touch  at  the  home  port  in 
his  travels  in  the  nearer  States.  But  now  he  starts  on  his 
long  journey  West  and  South,  into  a  new  world  of  men  and 
manners,  and  is  to  suffer  much  by  separation  from  his 
family.  In  a  word,  he  was  often  homesick.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1859,  he  reaches  Columbus,  the  capital  of  Ohio,  where 
he  is  to  make  the  bust  of  Gov.  Salmon  P.  Chase,  subse- 
quently Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  Lincoln's  first  Cabinet 
and  Chief-Justice  of  the  United  States.  Governor  Chase 
was  a  tall,  well-proportioned  man,  with  a  full,  cheerful 
face,  and  withal  great  dignity.  He  describes  the  domestic 
head  of  the  house,  Miss  Kate  Chase,  as  a  very  remarkable 
woman.  She  was  then  nineteen  years  old,  accomplished, 


86  HENRY  DEXTER 

and,  as  she  informed  Dexter,  unappreciated,  —  a  common 
complaint  among  young  men  and  women,  but  not  incur- 
able when  one  gets  to  Washington  and  is  the  daughter 
of  a  high  official.  John  Brown's  body  was  not  yet  mould- 
ering in  the  ground,  but  his  gallows  was  erecting,  and  the 
artist  found  all  around  him  admirers  and  adherents  of 
the  old  hero.  "  Governor  Chase's  model  men  are  Charles 
Sumner,  Wendell  Phillips  and  Theodore  Parker."  The 
bust  was  a  great  success;  and,  when  finished,  Dexter 
remarked,  "He  will  do  to  be  President  now." 

From  Columbus  he  travelled  to  Cincinnati,  where  he 
had  a  bit  of  pleasant  personal  experience.  Going  into  an 
art  store,  he  fell  into  talk  with  the  proprietor,  to  whom  he 
introduced  himself,  found  that  he  was  known  by  reputa- 
tion and  that  his  interlocutor  had  seen  and  admired  the 
statue  of  General  Warren;  upon  which  Dexter  makes  the 
comment  that  it  was  the  "first  genuine,  honest  praise  I 
ever  received  for  that  work." 

At  Frankfort,  Kentucky,  he  modelled  the  bust  of  Gov- 
ernor Magoffin.  Here  he  entered  for  the  first  time  the  land 
of  slaves,  fine  stock  and  rich  lands.  The  governor's  house 
was  full  of  black  servants  and  he  had  nine  small  children. 
He  made  a  dinner  party  for  the  artist,  all  the  dignitaries 
of  the  State  attending.  There  were  wonder  and  surprise 
at  the  man  who  could  make  an  image  of  their  great 
governor  in  a  week,  drink  no  wine,  nor  smoke,  not  even 
swear.  And  so  the  clay  head  was  ordered  in  marble  as  a 
tribute  to  art  and  Puritanism.  On  leaving  Frankfort,  he 
visited  the  Mammoth  Cave,  of  which  he  wrote  a  very- 
pretty  description,  and  thought  he  found  confirmation  of  his 
theories  as  to  how  the  world  was  made.  In  December 


A  MEMOIR  .  87 

he  arrived  in  Nashville,  Tennessee,  and  began  more  and 
more  to  note  the  contrasts  in  everything  to  what  he  had 
left  behind  in  New  England.  Here  were  unthrift  and 
untidiness,  and  lack  of  most  comforts  to  which  he  was 
accustomed.  All  menial  service  was  performed  by  slaves, 
"the  happiest  of  human  beings.  If  there  is  slavery,  it 
is  the  master  who  is  in  bondage."  In  a  Nashville  hotel 
his  bed  had  but  one  sheet,  "the  other  gone  to  be 
washed."  Perhaps  this  is  why  he  arose  at  five  o'clock 
in  the  morning  and  began  setting  up  his  clay.  At  the 
hotel  he  was  the  chum  of  Governor  Harris,  except  that 
they  slept  on  separate  beds.  But  they  used  the  same 
washbowl  and  towel,  the  latter  long  and  on  a  roller,  the 
same  pair  of  tongs  for  their  fires,  and  one  candlestick  for 
both ;  and  when  Dexter  needed  an  extra  one,  he  whittled 
a  candle-end  to  fit  a  bottle,  and  so  got  a  light  to  write  a 
letter  home.  Everything  in  Tennessee  at  this  date  was  in 
a  primitive  condition.  On  Sunday  he  heard  a  preacher 
who  punctuated  his  brimstone  sentences  by  squirting  to- 
bacco juice.  On  the  morrow  this  same  preacher  was  to  be 
installed  as  head  of  a  college. 

From  Nashville,  Dexter  retraced  his  steps  to  Richmond, 
Virginia,  with  the  intention  of  making  a  bust  of  Governor 
Wise.  He  was  unfortunate  enough  to  find  him  just  tak- 
ing leave  of  his  military  aids,  and  to  hear  him  make  a 
bitter  speech  against  the  North.  So  the  bust  had  to  be 
given  up  for  that  time,  and  he  proceeded  to  Raleigh, 
North  Carolina,  in  search  of  Governor  Ellis,  whom  he 
describes  as  a  gentleman,  and  his  wife  a  lady,  pious, 
accomplished  and  saying  grace  at  her  own  table.  Gov- 
ernor Ellis  proved  a  good  subject,  and  the  artist  thought 


88  HENRY   DEXTER 

his  bust  the  best  he  had  produced  thus  far.  I  note  at 
this  point  that,  on  leaving  North  Carolina,  Governor  Ellis 
gave  him  an  official  letter  as  a  protection  against  dangers 
to  which  he  might  be  exposed  as  a  Northerner.  This 
was  well,  as  he  was  about  leaving  for  South  Carolina 
in  search  of  Governor  Gist.  On  the  way  he  fell  in  with 
two  women,  also  going  to  see  Governor  Gist,  to  sue  for 
the  pardon  of  a  husband  and  brother.  Dexter  learned 
all  the  particulars  concerning  their  errand,  and  himself 
introduced  them,  making  a  little  plea  for  a  pardon. 
It  was  successful;  and  he  says  that  having  touched  so 
many  governors'  heads,  he  was  glad  at  last  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  touch  the  heart  of  one.  As  a  faithful 
narrator,  I  must  set  down  in  a  plain  style  these  small 
incidents,  which  show  a  man's  nature  as  well  as  if  told 
more  picturesquely.  Art  must  wait  on  humanity.  I  will 
here  insert  a  sentence  or  two  from  one  of  his  letters  while 
at  the  home  of  Governor  Gist,  as  showing  his  method  of 
study  for  a  bust.  "I  have  now  spent  two  days  here;  I 
have  studied  the  governor's  features  closely,  the  index  of 
the  human  heart,  and  fixed  the  impression  on  the  clay.  I 
have  already  decided  what  the  man  is,  and  what  the  bust 
will  be."  Perhaps  it  was  this  penetration  of  character 
which  enabled  him  to  make  such  admirable  likenesses. 
South  Carolina  was  for  secession,  and  Madame  Gist 
remarked  to  the  sculptor  that  the  bust  would  be  excellent 
for  Northerners  to  recognize  her  husband  by  when  they 
were  ready  to  hang  him. 

One  of  the  common  dishes  on  her  table  was  robins, 
which  Dexter  could  not  relish,  and  of  which  he  did  not 
partake,  for  thinking  of  those  that  were  so  dear  and  pleasant 


A  MEMOIR  89 

to  him  among  the  pear-trees  in  his  own  small  garden  at 
home.  One  of  the  happy  incidents  of  his  "visit  at  Gover- 
nor Gist's  occurred  while  they  were  walking  over  the 
plantation  together.  They  came  to  a  blacksmith's  shop, 
where  two  of  the  governor's  slaves  were  making  horse- 
shoes and  horseshoe  nails.  Dexter  took  the  hammer  and 
rod,  and  showed  how  he  used  to  do  it ;  and  he  also  made  a 
shoe,  for  which  Governor  Gist  did  the  striking.  Finally 
he  took  his  departure,  but  not  before  he  had  read  to  the 
governor  and  his  family  the  whole  of  his  diary  which  he 
had  kept  while  staying  with  them.  He  had  not  lately 
received  any  letters  from  home,  and  began  to  fear  they  had 
been  intercepted,  as  by  this  time  communications  between 
the  North  and  South  were  matters  of  suspicion,  and  he 
himself  would  have  been  in  peril  without  passports  from 
one  Southern  governor  to  another.  Nevertheless  he 
bravely  registered  himself  from  Boston  whenever  he 
stopped  at  a  hotel. 

From  South  Carolina,  Dexter  journeyed  on  to  Milledge- 
ville,  Georgia,  by  stages  and  cars,  the  later  going  at  the 
same  pace  as  the  former.  At  a  way  station  he  bought 
two  Northern  apples,  and  wanted  to  talk  with  them,  they 
so  reminded  him  of  home.  En  route  into  Georgia,  his 
trunks  went  astray,  so  that  when  he  arrived  and  found 
Governor  Brown  ready  to  sit  for  his  bust,  he  was  obliged 
to  go  first  to  a  pit  and  dig  his  clay,  and  then  mould  the 
bust  with  his  fingers.  Truly,  as  he  says,  he  did  not  carry 
his  art  in  a  trunk.  His  diary  of  the  days  in  Georgia  is 
mostly  filled  with  descriptions  of  the  country,  and  praises 
of  Governor  Brown  and  his  pleasant  family.  He  was 
treated  here  as  a  gentleman  by  a  gentleman,  and  went  on 


90  HENRY  DEXTER 

his  way  to  Florida  rejoicing  that  the  heart  of  man  is  not 
changed  by  latitude  and  longitude. 

At  a  station  called  Miconopy,  in  Florida,  he  was  still 
twelve  miles  from  the  residence  of  Governor  Perry.  This 
was  traversed  by  stage-coach,  and  it  was  night  when  he 
arrived,  and  the  family  was  in  bed.  The  more  em- 
barrassing was  the  situation  when  he  learned  that  the 
governor  had  not  received  his  letter,  which,  as  usual, 
he  had  sent  on  in  advance.  But  Southern  hospitality 
could  be  trusted  to  make  a  bed  and  light  a  fire  for  an 
unexpected  guest.  His  experiences  and  observations  in 
Florida  are  interesting  in  themselves,  but  all  the  more  as 
showing  how  alert  his  mind  and  eye  were ;  and  it  would 
be  instructive  to  quote  them  had  I  the  space  at  my  dis- 
posal. But  I  am  reluctantly  compelled  to  abridge  much 
that  would  be  of  interest  to  readers. 

From  Florida,  he  retraced  his  steps  through  South 
Carolina  to  Montgomery,  the  capital  of  Alabama,  where 
he  made  a  bust  of  the  State  executive,  Governor  Moore. 
Thence  he  steamed  down  the  Alabama  River,  and  up  the 
Mississippi,  bound  for  Jackson,  Mississippi,  where  he  put 
Governor  Pettus  into  clay,  and  received  an  order  from  the 
State  for  a  marble  copy. 

Governor  Wickliffe,  of  Louisiana,  was  his  next  subject, 
in  whose  family  of  daughters,  cousins  and  aunts  he  ap- 
pears to  have  taken  great  delight,  telling  them  about  his 
theories  of  creation,  which  they  thought  most  interesting 
and  heterodox,  and  teaching  them  how  to  make  a  rice 
pudding.  Next  he  starts  for  Texas,  to  pay  his  respects  to 
Gov.  Sam  Houston.  It  was  a  long,  tedious  journey  across 
the  Gulf  to  Galveston,  and  on  the  way  the  steamer  en- 


A  MEMOIR  91 

countered  a  norther.  They  were  steering  due  west  by  the 
new  moon  and  the  evening  star.  Then  followed  a  long 
stage  ride  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  to  Austin, 
through  sand  and  scrub  oak.  Dexter  thought  Sam 
Houston  a  great  man,  and  such  he  was,  —  great  in  his 
place  and  time,  —  and  a  giant  in  stature.  It  was  probably 
the  first  time  any  artist  had  penetrated  Texas.  While  at 
work  on  the  bust  of  the  governor,  Dexter  was  constantly 
surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  curious  spectators,  talking, 
smoking  and  wondering.  He  completed  his  model  in  two 
or  three  days  by  working  early  and  late,  for  he  began  to  be 
hungry  for  home,  toward  which,  when  he  should  leave 
Texas,  he  would  be  approaching.  Having  now  seen  so 
much  land,  and  heard  so  much  in  praise  of  the  peculiar 
advantages  of  different  places,  and  especially  in  Texas,  of 
its  extent,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  one  place  was 
about  as  good  as  another;  "that  a  man  with  a  good  farm 
in  New  England  is  as  well  off  as  he  would  be  with  a  good 
farm  anywhere  else ;  and  a  man  with  a  poor  farm,  or  none 
at  all,  is  better  off!  " 

In  Texas,  he  found  no  sweet  milk,  no  meat  but  pork, 
and  Northern  apples  ten  dollars  a  barrel.  And  yet  there 
were  herds  of  cattle  numberless,  and  sheep  whitened  the 
wide  plains.  A  dirk  in  the  belt  and  a  pipe  in  the  mouth 
were  at  this  period  the  insignia  of  the  true  Texan. 

In  due  time  he  arrived  in  New  Orleans.  It  was  March, 
1860,  and  the  Carnival  season.  He  saw  the  processions 
and  masquerades,  and  enough  to  satisfy  his  taste  for  the 
picturesque,  and  more  than  enough  to  disgust  his  sense  of 
the  proprieties.  His  next  objective  point  was  Little  Rock, 
Arkansas,  where  he  was  to  meet  Gov.  Elias  N.  Conway, 


92  HENRY  DEXTER 

whom  lie  discovered  in  bed ;  in  three  days  and  twelve  hours 
he  had  him  ready  to  stand  up  awake  on  his  pedestal. 

Leaving  Little  Rock,  he  once  more  reached  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  and  this  time  put  it  in  "lines."  At  Helena, 
on  a  wharf -boat,  he  saw  fastened  to  its  side  a  long  pole,  and 
on  it  a  placard  to  this  effect:  "This  is  the  rail  on  which 
the  people  of  Helena  rode  the  Abolitionists."  He  was 
now  going  up  the  Mississippi  to  St.  Louis,  for  the  purpose 
of  modelling  the  governor  of  Missouri,  but,  hearing  of  the 
death  of  Governor  Bissell,  of  Illinois,  he  changed  his  plan 
and  hurried  on  to  Springfield.  He  found  the  Capitol  and 
everybody  in  mourning.  He  says  of  himself  at  this  point: 
"  I  have  taken  such  an  interest  in  these  governors  that  it 
almost  seems  as  if  no  one  could  mourn  the  decease  of  any 
one  of  them  more  than  myself."  He  established  himself 
in  the  house  of  the  late  governor,  worked  on  the  bust  in 
his  chamber,  and  thought  that  so  he  would  be  nearer  to  the 
deceased  man  than  elsewhere.  This  gives  an  unexpected 
glimpse  of  Dexter's  fine  perceptions  in  his  relying  upon 
them  to  gather  from  the  intangible  atmosphere  of  a  man's 
daily  surroundings  a  knowledge  of  his  inner  being.  But 
there  were  difficulties  in  modelling  a  bust  from  daguerreo- 
types, and  those  not  of  a  recent  date.  Besides  these,  his 
only  other  guide  was  the  dead  governor's  hat.  In  the 
end,  after  the  three  hardest  days'  labor  he  had  ever  done, 
he  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  likeness  which  pleased  every 
one  except  Mrs.  Bissell.  Nor  was  this  an  exceptional 
instance  of  his  sensitiveness,  for  he  remarked  to  a  friend 
on  one  occasion  that  he  was  so  keenly  receptive  to  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  of  his  sitters  that  if  one  chanced  to 
be  mercenary  or  unprincipled  he  was  unable  to  drive  away 


A  MEMOIR  93 

the  antagonistic  and  disagreeable  impressions  produced, 
which  proved  a  serious  hindrance  to  his  work;  whereas, 
if  the  sitter  had  a  lofty,  fine  nature,  he  felt  exalted  and 
seemed  to  catch  visions  of  beauty  hovering  about  the 
head. 

On  April  2d  he  arrived  in  Jefferson  City,  Missouri, 
and  made  a  bust  of  Governor  Stewart,  which  he  thought 
one  of  his  best.  Again  he  was  on  the  Mississippi  River, 
and,  by  the  time  his  journey  ended,  he  had  traversed 
every  navigable  mile  of  it.  He  stopped  at  Keokuk,  Iowa, 
expecting  to  meet  Governor  Lowe  there;  but  he  was  at 
Davenport,  to  which  place  he  journeyed  on,  and  there 
caught  and  modelled  his  governor.  The  Wisconsin  gov- 
ernor was  in  Washington,  and  the  artist  had  to  omit  him 
for  the  time  being;  and  though  he  went  to  St.  Paul, 
Minnesota,  there  is  no  account  of  his  doings  there,  nor  in 
Michigan,  nor  Indiana. 

From  April  to  June  he  was  in  pursuit  of  the  governors 
of  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia,  Delaware  and  New 
Jersey.  National  affairs  were  approaching  a  crisis,  and  the 
State  officials  were  moving  about,  holding  consultations, 
now  at  their  own  capitals  and  then  at  Washington;  and 
Dexter  found  it  difficult  to  make  them  name  or  keep  their 
appointments.  He  had  many  amusing  experiences,  as,  for 
instance,  in  Milford,  Delaware,  where,  although  bearing  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  the  governor  to  his  wife,  the 
timid  woman  would  not  give  him  a  room  in  which  to 
set  up  his  clay  until  her  husband  should  arrive.  How- 
ever, she  cooked  him  a  dinner  of  bacon  and  eggs  with  her 
own  hands.  After  a  year  and  some  months  of  a  chiefly 
pork  diet,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  South  and 


94:  HENRY  DEXTER 

West  would  never  flourish  in  strength  or  morals  until  they 
gave  up  Mr.  Pig,  Mistress  Tobacco,  and  Sir  Bourbon. 

By  dint  of  much  travelling,  he  succeeded  in  catching 
Governor  Packer  of  Pennsylvania,  Governor  Hicks  of 
Maryland,  and  Governor  Newell  of  New  Jersey.  Gover- 
nor Randall,  of  Wisconsin,  he  overtook  in  Washington,  and 
modelled  him  in  four  sittings.  At  the  same  time  and 
place  he  found  Governor  Wise,  of  Virginia,  began  his  bust, 
but  found  him  so  violent  in  temper  that  no  clay  could 
stand  it,  and  so  he  dismissed  him.  However,  the  bust 
was  afterwards  completed.  Governor  Wise,  who  had  but 
lately  hung  John  Brown,  was  in  high  feather,  and  "  wished 
now  to  hang  all  Northerners,  especially  their  governors, 
and  make  a  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  for  their  clergy." 
Dexter  describes  him  as  a  man  who  had  chewed  tobacco 
4since  he  was  five  years  old,  thin  and  angular,  and  some- 
what resembling  the  knife  and  fork  stuck  up  beside  plates 
at  country  hotels. 

On  June  24,  1860,  we  come  to  the  close  of  his  adventures, 
travels  and  labors  in  the  enterprise  of  securing  the  like- 
nesses of  the  State  governors  just  before  the  secession  of 
the  Southern  States.  He  sums  up  his  reflections  on  this 
undertaking  in  these  words :  "  I  have  been  reflecting  upon 
the  remarkable  exemption  I  have  had  from  accidents  dur- 
ing all  these  thousand  miles  I  have  travelled,  and  from 
perils  seen  and  unseen,  and  feel  that  I  have  been  protected 
by  Divine  mercy.  I  have  not  carried  pistol  or  dirk  about 
me,  nor  had  them  nearer  than  in  the  pockets  of  my  fellow- 
passengers  in  stage-coaches  and  steamers.  I  have  never 
hesitated  to  walk  the  streets  in  any  Southern  or  Western 
city  at  any  hour  of  the  night  or  day  when  business  made 


A  MEMOIR  95 

it  necessary  for  me  to  do  so,  and  I  have  never  been  insulted 
by  look,  word,  or  action,  unless  by  Governor  Wise;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  I  have  been  treated  with  kindness  and 
civility.  I  have  not  lost  a  single  hour  on  account  of 
sickness." 

He  might  have  added  that  he  had  seen  his  own  country 
more  thoroughly  and  under  better  auspices  than  any  man 
of  his  time,  and  though  not  wholly  conscious  of  it,  at  a 
period  of  great  historical  importance.  His  lips  were  sealed 
on  much  that  it  would  have  been  interesting  to  have 
heard,  as  his  letters  were  liable  to  be  opened,  and  he  had 
to  be  cautious.  He  hints  in  more  than  one  place  that  he 
heard  secrets  not  to  be  written;  and  these  must  have  been 
such  as  he  gathered  in  confidential  talks  with  State  officials 
in  regard  to  the  questions  already  violently  agitating  the 
whole  country.  Whatever  he  gained  in  the  practice  of 
portrait-sculpture,  which  generally  had  to  be  done  under 
the  most  unfavorable  circumstances,  in  other  matters 
he  had  rare  opportunities  for  the  study  of  human  nature 
and  observation  of  climate,  productions,  scenery,  rivers, 
geology,  cities,  and  towns,  and  all  that  meets  the  eye  in 
new  lands.  To  these  he  was  awake,  and  was  constantly 
watchful  how  men  lived,  not  only  in  governors'  houses, 
but  in  others;  their  employments,  wages,  food,  rents, 
prices  of  land  and  domestic  animals,  not  less  than  their 
habits  and  opinions.  He  always  found  somebody  to  talk 
with  on  land  or  water,  —  somebody  who  could  tell  him 
something  and  answer  questions.  When  alone,  his  pen 
was  busy  in  writing  out  in  prose  or  verse  descriptions  of 
what  he  saw.  It  was  not  always  that  he  could  find  in 
hotels  or  steamers  a  table  to  write  upon;  a  washstand, 


96  HENRY  DEXTER 

window-ledge,  or  box  sufficed.  He  never  failed  to  attend 
some  church  wherever  the  Sabbath  found  him,  —  Baptist, 
Methodist,  or  Episcopalian;  he  had  respect  for  various 
forms  of  religion,  and  in  their  places  of  worship  he  took 
note  of  the  special  characteristics  in  different  communities 
in  the  Southern  and  Western  States.  I  must  record  that  he 
preferred  his  native  New  England  to  any  other  part  of  the 
country,  and  his  own  home  to  the  royal  houses  of  State 
governors.  His  heart  remained  untravelled;  his  mind 
became  broadened,  quickened  and  more  philosophical. 

What  was  to  be  the  fruit  of  all  this  labor  in  making  the 
busts  of  thirty-one  governors?  His  chief  hope  was  to 
have  the  complete  collection  gathered  at  Washington  for 
preservation  as  a  historical  marble  record  of  the  years  1859 
and  1860.  He  had  made  the  collection  at  his  own  expense, 
and  hoped  for  some  return.  The  war  came  on,  which 
made  the  busts  in  some  sense  more  valuable,  especially  at 
the  moment  when  there  was  a  danger  that  these  governors 
would  be  the  last  of  a  united  country.  Not  only  are 
laws  silent  inter  arma,  but  art  is  in  abeyance,  and  the 
sculptor's  hopes  were  extinguished.  The  collection  was 
exhibited  for  a  short  time  in  the  Doric  Hall  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts State  House,  until  the  busts  of  the  governors  of 
the  Southern  States  became  obnoxious  to  the  public  and  in 
some  danger  of  being  destroyed,  when  they  were  removed 
to  the  sculptor's  own  gallery.  The  collection  is  now  at 
the  Smithsonian  Institute  at  Washington.  Those  that 
were  transferred  to  marble  are  in  private  houses  and  in 
various  public  buildings  and  institutions  of  the  different 
States.  I  ought  to  mention  that,  seeing  no  prospect  of 
purchase  by  the  general  government,  he  made  some  efforts 


A  MEMOIR  97 

to  have  the  individual  States  order  their  governors  in 
marble.  I  find  among  his  papers  an  appeal  of  this  kind 
to  his  own  State,  in  which  he  refers  to  the  value  of  the 
remains  of  classic  art,  and  rightly  estimates  the  impor- 
tance that  future  times  may  attach  to  the  busts  of  public 
men  at  the  opening  of  the  war. 

In  vain  were  appeals  for  appropriations  of  public  money 
while  the  loyal  States  were  straining  every  resource  to 
equip  and  send  to  the  front  their  quotas  of  troops.  Dexter 
gave  up  the  attempt,  and  appears  never  again  to  have 
renewed  it.  He  retired  to  his  studio  and  executed  such 
orders  as  were  offered.  During  the  next  ten  years  he 
made  no  less  than  thirty-three  busts,  cutting  them  all 
in  marble,  and  one  ideal  work,  The  Nymph  of  the  Ocean. 
Among  the  busts  were  those  of  Longfellow  and  Agassiz, 
and  they  are  as  excellent  as  any  he  ever  made.  Both 
these  men  in  their  maturity  had  striking  heads,  easy  of 
recognition  in  any  assembly.  The  artist's  hand,  now  at 
the  zenith  of  its  power,  rendered  them  with  all  their 
natural  strength  and  noble  pose,  and  at  the  same  time 
caught  somewhat  of  that  inward  spirit  which  made  them 
what  they  were.  I  find  so  just  and  acute  a  notice  of  the 
Longfellow  bust  at  the  time  when  first  exhibited,  in  1868, 
that  I  insert  it  here. 

CAMBRIDGE,  Nov.  6,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  Sm,  —  I  want  to  express  to  you  my  very  great  ad- 
miration for  your  bust  of  Mr.  Longfellow.  As  a  portrait-bust, 
it  could  not  be  better.  It  not  only  satisfies  one's  memory  of  his 
countenance,  but  it  recalls  details  of  feature  and  expression  too 
minute  to  be  remembered  distinctly,  yet  recognized  the  moment 
they  are  seen.  Yet  more,  it  gives  the  history  of  his  face. 

7 


98  HENRY  DEXTER 

I  first  knew  him  when  he  was  a  slender  young  man,  with 
almost  feminine  grace  and  beauty  of  countenance,  but  with  no 
majesty  or  power.  Before  I  saw  your  bust  I  should  have  said 
that  he  had  nothing  of  his  early  face  in  his  present  countenance. 
But  you  have  caught  it  lurking  under  those  grand  and  massive 
features,  and  have  brought  it  into  the  light,  so  that  his  youth 
came  back  to  my  remembrance  while  I  was  looking  at  your 
marble  more  vividly  than  it  had  for  all  these  years  in  which  I 
have  been  living  with  him  at  Cambridge.  Now  this,  I  think,  is 
a  mark  of  a  genuine  art  work.  A  mere  copyist  on  canvas  or  in 
the  marble  may  represent  in  likeness  the  countenance  as  it  is ; 
but  only  the  artist  can  penetrate  to  the  half-buried  traits  of  the 
countenance  that  was. 

For  idealizing,  Mr.  Longfellow  left  you  very  little  room. 
But  one  who  had  never  seen  him  might  easily  take  your  bust  as 
embodying  an  artist's  ideal  of  an  epic  or  tragic  poet,  and  I  am 
sure  that  there  could  be  no  question  of  the  grandeur  of  the  idea 
or  of  the  consummate  skill  of  its  embodiment. 

I  heartily  congratulate  you  on  your  eminent  success  and  am, 
my  dear  sir, 

Very  truly  yours, 

A.  P.  PEABODT. 

HENRY  DEXTER,  Esq. 

I  find  among  his  papers  what  was  probably  his  last 
appeal  for  an  opportunity  to  devote  himself  to  purely 
ideal  works.  It  is  in  a  private  letter  to  Hon.  Samuel 
Hooper,  in  1871,  at  that  time,  if  I  mistake  not,  a  member 
of  Congress  from  Boston.  It  was  a  confidential  letter,  and 
in  it  he  speaks  from  his  heart.  It  is  a  confession  of  his 
achievements,  his  aspirations,  his  disappointments.  A 
touch  of  sadness  lingers  in  it,  as  if,  after  all  his  struggles 


A  MEMOIR  99 

and  labors,  his  modelling  of  so  many  of  the  illustrious 
obscure,  little  were  left  but  a  sigh  of  regret. 

"  After  leaving  you  this  morning,  it  occurred  to  me  it  might 
be  well  and  proper  to  say  in  a  note  a  few  things  I  might  or 
might  not  say  at  our  next  interview. 

"  Every  man  who  undertakes  anything  must  have  some  assur- 
ance of  his  own  ability  to  do  it.  You  have  this  assurance.  I 
have  it.  When  I  came  to  Boston  thirty-five  years  ago  I  had 
the  assurance  I  could  make  a  bust  —  and  I  made  it.  I  had 
that  same  feeling  that  I  could  make  a  statue  —  and  I  made  The 
Binney  Child  at  Mount  Auburn.  This  was  the  first  marble 
statue  in  the  United  States  made  by  a  native  American  artist 
who  had  not  been  to  Europe.  There  were  no  resident  sculptors 
here  then,  and  there  never  had  been.  I  also  had  the  assurance 
that  I  could  make  a  marble  statue  of  a  Backwoodsman,  and  I 
made  it,  overcoming  difficulties  enough  to  discourage  and  dis- 
hearten any  man.  It  was  the  same  with  the  statue  of  General 
Warren  at  Bunker  Hill.  I  have  made  two  hundred  busts. 
Fearing  the  public  would  think  I  could  make  nothing  else,  I 
produced  The  Ocean  Nymph.  I  have  had  no  assistance,  no 
foreign  aid.  You  have  not  seen  me  in  the  streets  idle.  I  have 
now  but  a  few  years  left  at  most.  The  work  of  my  life  I  have 
most  desired  to  do  I  have  not  done.  I  know  I  could  do  it  had 
I  the  means  to  pay  my  expenses  while  at  work.  Could  I  sell 
my  Backwoodsman  or  my  Nymph  I  could  meet  expenses,  and 
devote  myself  to  ideal  sculpture.  My  Governors  were  a  total 
loss  financially,  after  eighteen  months'  time  spent  in  the  under- 
taking and  twenty  thousand  miles  of  travel.  It  impoverished 
me  for  years.  I  did  hope  to  be  thought  of  in  Washington,  and 
that  some  of  the  orders  for  public  works  of  art  would  have  been 
awarded  me.  But  no,  not  one.  I  feel  now  in  a  hurry,  for  the 
day  cometh  with  all  men  when  labor  must  cease,  the  wearied 


100  HENRY   DEXTER 

hand  must  rest.  But  I  cannot  labor  without  pay,  without 
orders,  at  this  tune  of  life.  I  feel  strong  now,  and  I  wish  to  be 
busy,  that  my  decline  of  life  may  be  free  from  want,  or  the  fear 
of  want" 

This  is  the  old  cry  of  artist  and  poet  for  the  means  and 
the  opportunity  to  do  some  work  of  noble  note  however 
long  deferred. 

"  Old  age  hath  yet  his  honor  and  his  toil ; 
Death  closes  all;  but  something  ere  the  end, 
Some  work  of  noble  note  may  yet  be  done 
Not  unbecoming  men  that  strove  with  gods." 

In  the  above  letter  he  makes  allusion  to  The  Nymph. 
This  was  his  last  ideal  work.  It  was  exhibited  in  Boston 
in  1870,  and  won  much  commendation  from  the  newspaper 
critics  and  correspondents.  The  Nymph  is  of  the  water, 
a  young  Thetis,  represented  as  reclining  on  the  seashore. 
She  leans  upon  a  shell,  and  there  are  other  emblems  of 
the  sea.  The  face  and  head  are  modelled  on  Greek  lines. 
The  half  human  and  half  divine  are  blended  in  the  expres- 
sive mythological  manner  of  the  classic  artists.  Several 
poems  were  addressed  to  The  Nymph,  one  by  the  sculptor 
himself,  trying  to  convey  in  words  what  his  chisel  silently 
proclaimed.  There  was  another  containing  some  fine  lines, 
a  few  of  which  are  here  given :  — 

"  The  silver  sands  that  press  her  white  feet  fondly, 
The  waves  that  linger  with  caressing  touches, 
Claim  not  her  eye  or  thought  or  conscious  presence. 
Her  lip  is  touched  by  tender,  tremulous  sadness, 
Forecasting  human  love  and  human  sorrow ; 
Her  far  gaze  searches  o'er  the  mighty  waters 


A  MEMOIR  101 

To  where  Fate's  deeper  mystery  broods  and  shadows; 

All  lies  before,  but  yet  beyond  her  vision. 

Hid  is  the  will  of  Zeus,  the  craft  of  Cheiron, 

The  faith  of  Peleus ;  and  that  mortal  marriage, 

With  all  its  sorrowful,  lamenting  sequence, 

And  all  the  glory  of  the  reconciler : 

Veiled  is  the  destiny  that  waits  her  coming." 

Among  Dexter's  notes  concerning  The  Nymph  is  an 
account  of  interviews  with  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and 
Longfellow,  who  called  to  see  the  statue.  Holmes  under- 
took to  criticise  it  from  an  anatomical  point  of  view,  and 
showed  a  bit  of  his  irresistible  humor  in  stating  the  exact 
age  of  The  Nymph  in  years  and  months.  But  here  is  the 
note  just  as  I  find  it :  — 

"Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes  called.  I  showed  him  the  busts  first 
He  was  very  quick  to  recognize  the  likenesses.  Then  I  un- 
covered the  statue ;  he  sat  and  looked  in  silence ;  after  some 
five  minutes  he  said,  '  A  girl ;  a  Yankee  girl ;  fourteen  years  old 
and  seven  months ;  the  face  is  a  portrait ;  it  is  a  nymph ;  a  girl 
upon  the  beach  ;  it  is  not  a  Grecian  nymph,  for  the  face  is  not 
Grecian.' 

"I  saw  where  he  was;  thus  far  I  had  said  nothing,  but 
then  I  explained  to  him  my  idea  and  asked  him  to  be  free  and 
say  anything  that  occurred  to  him  in  the  way  of  criticism.  He 
drew  my  attention  to  the  right  breast  of  the  figure,  to  the  fold 
between  the  breast  and  arm ;  to  the  direction  of  the  second  toe 
from  the  third;  to  the  muscle  of  the  right  shoulder;  and  he 
criticised  these  points  a  little,  but  would  not  say  decidedly  that 
they  were  not  right.  The  back  he  thought  was  very  good  ;  the 
vertebrae  well  marked,  and  the  figure  as  a  whole  remarkably 
chaste,  beautiful  and  graceful.  I  felt  convinced  that  he  was 
right  in  his  criticism,  and  the  next  day  changed  the  points  on 


102  HENEY  DEXTER 

the  figure  that  he  had  indicated,  and  by  a  few  minutes'  work  the 
face  was  altered  to  a  Grecian  type. 

"The  next  day  Longfellow  called  to  see  the  statue.  He 
knew  what  he  was  to  see,  and  so  his  visit  was  different  from  that 
of  Dr.  Holmes.  Longfellow  thought  the  face  was  Grecian,  suffi- 
ciently so  to  answer  to  the  name  of  Thetis.  I  was  exceedingly 
pleased  with  the  changes  I  had  made  in  the  face,  although  I  said 
nothing  to  him  in  reference  to  them.  He  made  some  half-way 
criticisms  and  then  withdrew  them;  evidently  tried  to  find 
something  that  he  could  say  was  not  right,  but  had  to  give  it 
up  and  fell  into  the  mood  of  admiration.  He  said  the  figure 
was  graceful  and  remarkable  for  chasteness  of  attitude. 

"  Professor  Sophocles  called  also  to  see  the  statue.  He  said 
it  was  a  Venus  just  come  up  out  of  the  sea ;  a  young  woman 
about  eighteen ;  he  thought  the  figure  embodied  perfect  inno- 
cence ;  he  did  not  suggest  anything  to  change  —  thought,  if 
attempted,  it  would  be  more  liable  to  injure  than  improve." 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  Dexter  was  much  appreciated, 
while  he  lived,  by  the  Boston  and  Cambridge  public. 
Self-made  men  have  a  certain  advantage  over  those  who 
have  gone  through  regular  courses  in  the  interest  they 
excite.  Yet  self-made  is  too  often  a  brag,  a  cover  for 
essential  mediocrity,  as  we  observe  sometimes  in  the  career 
of  public  men.  But  the  true  self-made  is  the  only  self  of 
real  value.  This  consists,  as  in  the  case  of  Dexter,  of  an 
early  ideal  and  an  industrious,  unfaltering  pursuit  of  it  to 
the  end  of  life.  He  tried  to  perfect  himself  in  his  several 
occupations  from  boyhood  to  old  age.  He  broadened  him- 
self by  study,  by  travel,  by  constant  use  of  his  pen  in  set- 
ting down  his  observations  and  speculations ;  and  his  higher 
moods  found  frequent  expression  in  verse.  This  was  the 


A  MEMOIR  103 

self  he  made  out  of  the  being  God  had  given  him,  and  the 
aids  and,  I  may  add,  the  hindrances  of  fortune  and  environ- 
ment. His  example  is  worth  more  than  all  the  art  in  the 
world.  Knowing  him  as  I  did,  and  as  I  have  tried  to 
picture  him,  I  hold  the  man  dearer  and  more  illustrious 
than  any  of  his  works.  If  the  same  be  not  confessed  of 
all  the  celebrated,  their  fame  is  of  little  worth.  Let  me 
know  the  man  behind  his  work,  said  Goethe. 

Knowing  him  thus,  one  admires  the  farm  boy,  the  black- 
smith, as  much  as  the  sculptor.  None  of  his  talents  was 
cultivated  at  the  expense  of  another,  or  at  the  sacrifice  of 
any  of  the  common  duties  of  home  and  citizenship.  His 
artistic  temperament  was  well  balanced  by  many  conserva- 
tive instincts  and  by  saving  common-sense.  Very  striking 
in  him  was  the  absence  of  the  current  outbreaks  of  radical- 
ism, and  he  had  no  taste  for  clubs,  for  wine  or  Vagabondia. 
He  went  to  the  church  of  his  choice  regularly,  and  ac- 
cepted most  of  its  tenets.  He  was  reverent  toward  all 
forms  of  religion,  and  observant  of  good  in  men  rather  than 
the  evil.  As  he  appealed  to  the  best  in  human  nature,  he 
found  it.  Consequently  his  usual  mood  was  joyous  and 
hopeful.  He  loved  conversation  and  congenial  companion- 
ship. You  could  express  no  sentiment  or  idea  too  elevated 
for  his  sympathy.  He  listened  to  the  outbursts  of  youth- 
ful exuberance  with  admiration,  and  he  'could  on  occasion 
outstrip  us  all  in  the  far  flights  of  fancy  and  speculation. 
Glad  was  I,  for  one,  to  find  him  ignorant  of  most  of  the 
things  taught  at  Cambridge.  He  sometimes  regretted  this, 
being  unconscious  of  the  charm  of  his  own  natural  gen- 
ius, so  free  from  the  incubus  of  collegiate  learning,  which 
often  makes  men  only  the  more  narrow  and  unintelligent. 


104  HENRY  DEXTER 

There  are  many  things  it  is  better  not  to  know.  Nor  can 
there  be  much  regret  that  the  artist  found  few  opportuni- 
ties for  ideal  marbles,  seeing  that  hitherto  such  works 
have  been  but  another  name  for  imitation  of  classic  models, 
—  imitation  of  the  inimitable  and  of  divinities  in  whom  we 
no  longer  believe.  Just  what  would  be  the  results  of  an 
endeavor  to  put  into  sculpture  our  American  beliefs,  our 
costumes,  our  historic  or  romantic  events,  and  whatever  in 
our  national  life  is  essentially  characteristic,  it  will  be  time 
to  determine  when  it  is  attempted.  But  the  portrait-busts 
left  by  Dexter  I  foresee  will  be  sometime  of  more  value  as 
a  record  of  the  period  in  which  he  lived,  and  of  contempo- 
rary men,  than  any  ideal  statuary.  And  if  ever  the  time 
comes  when  the  gulf  between  the  so-called  fine  and  useful 
arts  shall  be  abridged,  beauty  and  utility  become  one  and 
the  same,  then  it  may  be  that  Dexter's  axes,  so  conscien- 
tiously and  proudly  made,  or  his  shoe-knives  with  a  razor- 
edge,  will  be  remembered  and  seen  to  be  as  beautiful  as 
his  best  statue. 


A  MEMOIR  105 


V 

THE  CLOSING  YEARS 

"  TN  going  from  one  room  to  another  there  is  a  point  in 
A  the  doorway  where  we  are  not  conscious  of  either 
room."  This  is  a  sentence  from  the  artist's  philosophical 
speculations  regarding  the  passage  from  life  to  death.  I 
use  it  to  illustrate  the  continuity  of  his  labors  as  he 
descended  from  middle  life  to  old  age,  where  the  long  past 
merged  gently  and  unconsciously  into  the  few  remaining 
years.  He  labored  on,  happy  in  memory,  comfortable  in 
his  outward  life,  and  much  pleased  with  a  new  home, 
which  in  1873  he  had  made  in  Cambridge,  not  far  from 
the  University  grounds.  But  he  still  kept  his  studio  in 
Cambridgeport,  where  he  worked  every  day  as  usual. 
The  exertion  of  walking  back  and  forth  was  perhaps  too 
much  for  his  strength.  It  was  hard  for  him  to  realize  that 
he  was  not  as  vigorous  as  ever.  In  his  old  studio  old 
voices  communed  with  him,  spirits  of  the  past  attended 
him,  and  the  forms  he  had  wrought  out  in  anguish  or 
joy  looked  down  upon  him  from  his  gallery.  There  he 
was  at  home ;  its  silence  was  soothing,  its  labor,  from  long 
habit,  necessary  and  grateful.  He  was  fortunate  in  being 
able  to  finish  his  very  last  order,  a  bust  of  a  Mr.  Taylor  of 
Boston.  He  was  lately  deceased,  and  Dexter  worked  from 
photographs. 


106  HENRY  DEXTER 

When  his  day's  work  was  done,  he  enjoyed  receiving 
and  making  calls ;  and  all  who  knew  him  delighted  in  his 
society.  In  the  Centennial  year,  1876,  he  had  applied  for 
space  to  exhibit  specimens  of  his  work  at  the  Philadelphia 
Exposition;  but,  his  health  beginning  to  fail,  he  found  it 
impossible  to  attend  to  the  necessary  details,  and  aban- 
doned the  project.  His  illness  was  long  and  at  times  pain- 
ful, preventing  him  from  his  customary  labors  and  duties 
for  many  months ;  but  through  it  all  he  was  cheered  and 
sustained  by  the  sympathy  of  friends,  and  the  faithful 
attention  of  his  wife,  who  survived  him,  and  was  untiring 
in  her  devotion  to  him  in  his  later  years  and  through  his 
long  illness. 

His  love  of  his  country,  which  was  one  of  his  strongest 
and  steadiest  traits,  made  him  deeply  interested  in  the 
Centennial  Celebration.  He  could  not  expatriate  himself 
at  a  time  when  other  lovers  of  art  thought  it  was  the 
price  to  be  paid  for  opportunities  and  success.  It  was 
therefore  a  great  disappointment  when  he  found  himself 
unable  to  exhibit  at  Philadelphia  that  which  represented 
the  work  of  an  American  sculptor  in  his  native  land.  For 
some  time  before  the  Exposition,  in  the  intervals  when 
released  from  the  extreme  sufferings  of  his  disease,  he 
amused  himself  in  writing  a  Centennial  poem.  It  consists 
of  about  twelve  hundred  lines  descriptive  of  the  gathering 
of  all  the  nations,  —  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  —  with 
their  products,  their  animals,  even  to  the  smallest  insects, 
upon  the  coast  of  England,  whence  they  sail  for  America. 
Then  follows  an  account  of  the  assembling  of  the  people, 
and  their  several  belongings,  from  every  part  of  North  and 
South  America,  and  their  reception  at  Philadelphia.  The 


A  MEMOIR  107 

poem  is  graphic  in  its  word-painting,  and  really  rather 
more  prefigures  in  its  scope  and  variety  the  Chicago 
Columbian  Fair  than  the  Centennial.  This  was  his  last 
effort  with  his  pen.  Pen  and  chisel  were  laid  aside,  and 
those  hands  which  had  never  rested  for  sixty  years  were 
folded  in  eternal  peace. 

He  died  June  23,  1876,  being  then  within  three  months 
of  seventy  years  of  age.  He  left  no  unfinished  works  in 
marble.  His  metaphysical  speculations,  to  which  I  have 
alluded,  were  left  incomplete,  and  not  in  a  state  to  present 
to  the  reader.  Many  of  their  conclusions  are  novel  and 
bold,  and  generally  in  conflict  with  the  most  modern  scien- 
tific researches.  He  theorized  by  the  light  of  the  imagina- 
tion, which  often  traverses  reason  and  fact;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  as  often  prophetic  of  new  ideas  and  discoveries. 
His  rigid  conservatism  in  politics  and  religion  allowed 
itself  compensation  and  freer  play  with  pen  and  chisel.  If 
in  any  way  a  man  attains  complete  inward  freedom,  it  is 
in  the  occasional  hours  when  he  feels  inspired  to  express 
himself  through  verse.  The  true  muse  hangs  no  badge  of 
sect  or  party  on  the  doors  she  enters.  She  is  playful,  or 
she  is  serious ;  but  her  play  is  not  wanton,  nor  her  sobriety 
gloom.  Both  are  altogether  wholesome  and  elevating,  and 
keep  a  man,  as  they  did  keep  Dexter,  always  young  and 
ingenuous  in  spirit.  This  outlet  through  writing  poetry 
was  his  faithful  companion  and  playmate  throughout  his 
arduous  and  laborious  life,  giving  him  moments  of  true 
pleasure  and  repose. 

Look  into  his  studio  and  observe  the  sculptor  in  his 
dusty  smock  and  paper  cap,  weary  with  hours  of  chiselling ; 
he  stops,  puts  his  tools  on  the  block,  goes  to  his  little 


108  HENRY  DEXTER 

table,  where  are  always  paper  and  pencil,  and  rests  and 
refreshes  himself  with  a  verse,  or  an  added  page  to  his 
philosophy.  At  the  end  of  the  day  go  home  with  him; 
there  he  is  full  of  talk  and  geniality,  is  gay  with  the  gay, 
thinks  with  thinkers,  is  fond  of  children  and  his  garden, 
admires  beautiful  women  and  noble  natures.  This  was 
the  man. 

And  here  transcribing  one  of  his  later  poems,  which 
seems  to  be  the  impassioned  expression  of  a  soul  whose 
view  of  the  great  Spirit  of  the  universe  becomes  nearer 
and  clearer  as  it  is  about  to  take  its  farewell  of  earthly 
things  and  endeavors  to  give  utterance  to  an  inexpressible 
theme,  I  leave  him  to  the  contemplation  of  the  reader. 

God !  my  spirit  calleth  to  its  cause ; 

Soul !  as  that  is  which  in  me 

In  its  spirit  seeketh  thee ; 
Yet  not  the  word  but  conscious  laws. 

Word?'  What  word  can  e'er  my  spirit  lead? 

What  the  drop  can  ever  show 

Kindred  drop  by  which  to  know 
God,  that  source  from  which  we  all  proceed? 

That  which  God  is,  language  ever  veils ; 

Line  on  line,  fold  over  fold, 

Ever  telling,  never  told ; 
In  vain,  in  vain ;  no  tongue  reveals. 

God !    Then  sounds  deep  the  soul-struck  lyre 
Stringed  with  human  nerve  and  heart ; 
Yet  then  only  can  impart 

Some  spark  from  that  celestial  fire. 


A  MEMOIR  109 

Nay,  touched  of  God  his  spirit  speaks, 
Grants  us  now  responsive  sound 
Though  all  human  tongues  confound  — 

Blest !  Supreme !  feels  the  thought  it  seeks. 


CATALOGUE  OF  THE  WORKS 


OP 


HENRY  DEXTER,  SCULPTOR 

Arranged  in  the  order  of  their  execution.     When  marked  by  an  asterisk 
it  signifies  that  the  works  were  carried  into  marble. 


1.  1835.   The  first  essay  in  clay,  bust  of  F.  W.  Lane  of  Boston. 

2.  1836.   Bust  of  Col.  Samuel  Swett  of  Boston.*    Library  at  New- 

buryport,  Mass. 

3.  1836.   Bust  of  Rev.  Hubbard  Winslow  of  Boston. 

4.  1836.   Bust  of  Peter  Harvey,  Esq.     Boston. 

5.  1836.  Bust  of  Rev.  Mr.  Newell.    Boston. 

6.  1836.    Bust  of  William  Ward,  Esq.     Boston. 

7.  1837.    Bust  of  Rev.  Dr.  Rufus  Anderson. 

8.  1837.   Bust  of  Hon.  Samuel  A.  Eliot.*    Boston.    Family. 

9.  1837.   Bust  of  Dr.  Winslow  Lewis.    Boston. 

10.  1837.   Bust  of  Mrs.  Winslow  Lewis.    Boston. 

11.  1837.   Bust  of  Judge  Jackson.     Brookline. 

12.  1838.   Bust  of  Miss  Rogers.     Portland,  Maine. 

13.  1838.   Bust  of  Dr.  Solomon  Keep.     Boston. 

14.  1838.   Bust  of  Rev.  E.  M.  Magoun. 

1 5.  1838.   Bust  of  Miss  Ellen  Tree.*    Colonel  Perkins. 

16.  1839.   Statue  of  Miss  Emily  Binney,  known  as  "The  Binney 

Child."  *    Mount  Auburn. 

17.  1839.   Bust  of  Miss  Harriet  J.  Dexter,  daughter  of  the  sculptor. 

18.  1840.    Bust  of  Dr.  Ingalls.     Boston. 

19.  1840.   Bust  of  Miss  Anna  E.  Dexter,  youngest  daughter  of  the 

sculptor. 


112  CATALOGUE  OF  THE 

20.  1840.  Bust  of  Mrs.  Alvan  Clark.    Cambridge. 

21.  1840.  Bust  of  the  sculptor's  mother. 

22.  1840.  Bust  of  Gov.  Marcus  Morton. 

23.  1840.  Bust  of  B.  B.  Thatcher.    Boston. 

24.  1840.  Bust  of  William  Andrews,  actor. 

25.  1840.  Bust  of Finn,  actor. 

26.  1841.  Bust  of  Gov.  John  Davis.*    Boston  Athenaeum. 

27.  1841.  Bust  of  Thomas  B.  Curtis.*    Boston.     Family. 

28.  1841.  Painting.     The  Artist's  Daughters. 

29.  1841.  Bust  of  William  Loring.*    Boston.     Family. 

30.  1841.  Bust  of  Miss  Caroline  Dexter. 

31.  1842.  Bust  of  Charles  Dickens. 

32.  1842.  Bust  of  Jonas  Chickering.*    Boston.    Family. 

33.  1842.  Statue  of  Miss  E.  Winchester.*    Family. 

34.  1842.  Bust  of  Francis  C.  Gray.*    Boston. 

35.  1842.  Model  of  a  hand  of  Miss  Anna  E.  Dexter.* 

36.  1842.  Bust  of  Hon.  Theodore  Lyman.*    Family.     Also  dupli- 

cated for  the  Horticultural  Society  and  the  Farm  School 
at  Westborough. 

37.  1842.   Bust  of  Gov.  S.  S.  Armstrong.*    Family. 

38.  1843.   Bust  of  Miss  Eunice  Richardson.     Salem. 

39.  1843.   Study  of  a  foot. 

40.  1843.   Bust  of  Mr.  Charles  Lincoln.     Charlestown.    Warden  of 

the  State  Prison. 

41.  1843.   Bust  of  Commodore  Alexander  Mackenzie.*    New  York. 

Boston  Athenaeum. 

42.  1843.   Bust  of  John  D.   Williams.*     Boston.      Duplicated  in 

marble  four  times. 

43.  1843.  Bust  of  a  baby.    Mrs.  Eaton.     Cambridge. 

44.  1843.  Bust  of  Miss  Charlotte  Nichols.    Cambridge. 

45.  1844.   Bust  of  William  Lawrence.*    Family. 

46.  1844.   Bust  of  Jencks  Dexter.    Kansas. 

47.  1844.   Bust  of  Miss  Mills.     South  Carolina. 

48.  1844.   Duplicate  bust  of  Amos  Lawrence.* 

49.  1844.   Bust  of  Samuel  P.  Allen.*    Cambridge.    Family. 

50.  1844.   Bust  of  Tasker  Swett.*    Boston.     Family. 

51.  1845.   Bust  of  Miss  Sophia  Studley.     Cambridge. 


WORKS  OF  HENRY  DEXTER  113 

52.  1845.  Bust  of  a  child.*    Cambridge.    S.  P.  Allen. 

53.  1845.  Statue.     Mary  Magdalene. 

54.  1845.  Model  of  a  hand  of  Miss  Harriet  Dexter. 

55.  1846.  Statuette.     A  study. 

56.  1846.  Bust  of  Gov.  Briggs.*    Pittsfield,  Mass.     Family. 

57.  1846.  Bust  of  Hon.  John  Pickering.*    American  Academy  of 

Arts  and  Sciences. 

58.  1846.   Bust  of  a  child. 

59.  1846.   Bust  of  a  child  of  L.  Stanwood.* 

60.  1846.   Bust  of  a  child  of  N.  A.  Thompson.* 

61.  1846.   Mural   monument  with  figure  of  Grief.*     In  church  at 

Portolago.     South  Carolina. 

62.  1846.   Painting.     The  Marys  at  the  Sepulchre. 

63.  1847.    The     Backwoodsman.*      Marble     statue,     heroic      size. 

Wellesley  College. 

64.  1847.   Bust  of  Edmund  Dwight.*    Mrs.  Parkman. 

65.  1847.   Bust  of  Alexander  Hamilton.*    Boston. 

66.  1847.  Bust  of  John  Chase.*    Chicopee. 

67.  1848.  Statue.    The  First  Lesson.*    Portrait-statue  of  a  daugh- 

ter of  John  P.  Gushing.     Watertown. 

68.  1848.   Boy  and  Squirrel.*    Portrait-statue  of  a  son  of  John  P. 

Gushing.     Watertown. 

69.  1849.   Bust  of  John  G.  Gushing.* 

70.  1849.   Bust  of  Robert  M.  Gushing.* 

71.  1849.   Bust  of  Thomas  F.  Gushing.* 

72.  1849.   Bust  of  Marie  Louisa  Gushing.* 

73.  1850.   Portrait  of  Charles  Valentine.      Cambridge.     The   last 

painting  executed  by  the  sculptor. 

74.  1850.  Bust  of  William  Hayward.*    Charleston,  S.  C. 

75.  1850.  Bust  of  a  child.*    E.  D.  Goodrich.    Cambridge. 

76.  1850.  Bust  of  Mrs.  S.  P.  Allen.*    Cambridge. 

77.  1851.  Statue  of  Frank  Gardner.*    Mount  Auburn. 

78.  1851.  Bust  of  Hon.  WiUiam  Appleton.*    Boston. 

79.  1852.  Bust  of  Dr.  John  C.  Warren.*    Boston. 

80.  1852.  Bust  of  Dr.  John  C.  Warren.*    Duplicated  in  marble. 

81.  1852.  Bust  of  Robert  G.  Shaw.*    Boston. 

82.  1852.  Bust  of  Robert  G.  Shaw.*    Duplicated  in  marble. 

8 


114  CATALOGUE  OF  THE 

83.  1852.   Bust  of  Hon.  John  C.  Gray.*     Boston. 

84.  1852.   Bust  of  the  late  Hon.  William  Gray.*     "Billy  Gray" 

taken  from  a  portrait. 

85.  1852.  Bust  of  Mr.  Crowninshield. 

86.  1852.  Bust  of  Miss  Caroline  F.  Orne.    Cambridge. 

87.  1853.  Bust  of  Charles  M.  Hovey.*    Cambridge. 

88.  1853.  Bust  of  Mrs.  Charles  M.  Hovey.*    Cambridge. 

89.  1853.  Bust  of  Mr.  Williams.*    Boston. 

90.  1853.  The  Mountfort  Monument.*    At  Mount  Auburn. 

91.  1853.  Statue.     The  Yankee  Boy. 

92.  1854.  Bust  of  Frederic  Tudor.*    Historical  Society.    Boston. 

93.  1854.  Bust  of  Hon.  Isaac  Livermore.*    Cambridge. 

94.  1854.  Bust  of  Rev.  Dr.  Walker.*    President  of  Harvard  College, 

Cambridge.    College  Library. 

95.  1854.   Bust  of  Hon.  Anson  Burlingame.    Cambridge. 

96.  1854.   Bust  of  George  Livermore,  Esq.     Cambridge. 

97.  1854.   Statue  of  a  dog.     Cut  in  freestone.    Forest  Hills  Ceme- 

tery. 

98.  1854.   Bust  of  Miss  Mountfort.*    New  Orleans. 

99.  1854.   Bust  of  a  child.*    Mr.  Leeds. 

100.  1854.   Bust  of  a  daughter  of  William  Mason.*    Taunton. 

101.  1854.   Bust  of  Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop.*    Boston  Historical 

Society. 

102.  1855.   Bust  of  Miss  Folsom.*    Cambridge. 

103.  1855.   Bust  of  Williston.*      East    Hampton.     Amherst 

College. 

104.  1856.   Bust  of  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow.*     Boston.    Massachusetts 

General  Hospital. 

105.  1856.   Medallion  Head  of  Samuel  Appleton.*    King's  Chapel. 

Boston. 

106.  1857.   Study  for  the  statue  of  General  Warren. 

107.  1857.   Study  for  the  statue  of  General  Warren. 

108.  1857.   Statue  of  Gen.  Joseph  Warren.*    Bunker  Hill.     Charles- 

town. 

109.  1857.   Bust  of  Francis  Batchelder,  Esq.*    Cambridge. 

110.  1857.   Duplicate   marble    bust  of    Edward   Everett.*      After 

Powers. 


WORKS  OF  HENRY  DEXTER  H5 

111.  1858.  Bust  of  Hon.  Alexander  H.  Rice.*    Boston. 

112.  1858.  Bust  of  Isaac  F.  Shepard.    Boston. 

113.  1858.  Bust  of  Hon.  Henry  Wilson.* 

114.  1858.  Design  for  a  Pediment  for  one  of  the  public  buildings  at 

Washington.    Representing  the  Settlement  of  America. 

115.  1859.  Bust  of  James  Buchanan.*    President  of  the  United 

States.    Family.    Wheatland. 

116.  1859.  Duplicate  of  Buchanan.* 

117.  1859.  Bust  of  Governor  Buckingham.*    Connecticut. 

118.  "  "     "          "        Goodwin.*    New  Hampshire. 

119.  "         "     "          "        Turner.    Rhode  Island. 

120.  «         "     "          «        Hall.    Vermont. 

121.  "  «     "          "        Morgan.*    New  York. 

122.  "  «     "          "        Morrill.    Maine. 

123.  «  "     «          "        Chase.    Ohio. 

124.  "  «     "          «        Magoffin.*    Kentucky. 

125.  "  "     "         "        Harris.    Tennessee. 

126.  "  "     "          «        Ellis.*    North  Carolina. 

127.  '«  "     "          "        Gist.    South  Carolina. 

128.  "  "     "          "        Brown.    Georgia. 

129.  "  "     "          "        Perry.    Florida. 

130.  "  "     «          "        Moor.    Alabama. 

131.  "  «     "          "        Pettus.    Mississippi. 

132.  "  «     «          "        Wickliffe.     Louisiana. 

133.  "  "     «          «        Houston.    Texas. 

134.  «  "     "         "        Conway.    Arkansas. 

135.  1860  "     "          "        Stewart.    Missouri. 

136.  «  "     "          »«        Bissell.    Illinois. 

137.  "  "     «         "        Lowe.    Iowa. 

138.  "  «     ««          «        Sibley.    Minnesota. 

139.  "  «     «          «        Randall.    Wisconsin. 

140.  "  «     «          «        Wisner.    Michigan. 

141.  "  «     «          «        Willard.    Indiana. 

142.  "  "     «         »        Packer.    Pennsylvania. 

143.  "  «     «          «        Burton.    Delaware. 

144.  "  «     "          «        Newell.    New  Jersey. 

145.  «  «     «          «        Hicks.    Maryland. 


116  CATALOGUE  OF  THE 

146.  1860.    Bust  of  Governor  Wise.     Virginia. 

147.  "          "     "          "         Banks.     Massachusetts. 

148.  1861.  Bust  of  a  lady. 

149.  1861.  Bust  of  Alvdn  Adams,  Esq.*     Watertown. 

150.  1861.  Bust  of  Judge  Putnam.*     Roxbury. 

151.  1861.  Duplicate  of  Judge  Putnam.* 

152.  1862.  Bust    of    Prof.    C.    C.    Felton.*     Harvard    University 

Library.     Cambridge. 

153.  1862.   Duplicate  Prof.  C.  C.  Felton,*  for  Samuel  Felton.    Phila- 

delphia. 

154.  1862.   Duplicate  bust  of  William  Appleton.* 

155.  1862.   Bust  of  Hon.  MarshaU  P.  Wilder.*    Horticultural  Hall. 

Boston. 

156.  1862.   Duplicate  bust  of  Hon.  John  Pickering.* 

157.  1863.    Duplicate  bust  of  Hon.  Edward  Everett.*    Philadelphia. 

158.  1863.   Bust    of  Josiah  Stickney.*     Watertown.     Horticultural 

Hall.     Boskm. 

159.  1863.  Bust  of  Rev.  Hubbard  Winslow.*    New  York. 

160.  1863.  Bust  of  Mrs.  Percival  L.  Everett.*    Boston. 

161.  1864.  Bust  of  "  Little  Anna."  *      Mrs.  James  W.  Mason. 

162.  1865.  Bust  of  E.  K.  Mudge,  Esq.*    St.  Stephens  Church,  Lynn. 

163.  1865.  Bust  of  James  L.  Little.*    Boston. 

164.  1865.  Bust  of  Mrs.  James  L.  Little.*    Boston. 

165.  1865.  Bust  of  Moses  Williams.*    Boston. 

166.  1865.  Bust  of  a  child. 

167.  1866.  Bust  of  Hon.  George  C.  Richardson.*    Boston. 

168.  1866.  Bust  of  Mrs.  George  C.  Richardson.*    Boston. 

169.  1866.  Bust  of  Nathaniel  Thayer.*    Library,  Lancaster,  Mass. 

170.  1866.  Bust  of  Charles  L.  Harding.*    Cambridge. 

171.  1866.  Bust  of  Mrs.  Charles  L.  Harding.*    Cambridge. 

172.  1866.  Bust  of  Edgar  Harding.*    Cambridge. 

173.  1866.  Bust  of  "  Little  Addie."  *    Mrs.  Robert  Douglass.     Cam- 

bridge. 

174.  1867.   Bust  of  Louis  Agassiz.*    Nathaniel  Thayer.    Boston. 

175.  1867.   Bust  of  Arthur  Wilkinson.*    Cambridge. 

176.  1867.   Bust  of   Aaron  Williams.*    Roxbury.      Savings  Bank. 

Highland  District. 


WOKKS  OF  HENRY  DEXTER  117 

177.  1867.  Bust  of  Professor  Beck.*    Cambridge. 

178.  1867.  Bust  of  Master  Charles  Moring.*    Cambridge. 

179.  1868.  Bust  of  Hon.  Joel  Parker.*    Cambridge. 

180.  1868.  Bust  of  Henry  W.  Longfellow.*    Cambridge.     Library, 

Lancaster,  Mass. 

181.  1868.   Bust  of  Aaron  B.  Magoun.*    Harvard  Grammar  School. 

Cambridge. 

182.  1868.   Bust  of  Caleb  Wood.*    Cambridge. 

183.  1869.   Bust  of  Rev.  Dr.  C.  W.  Peabody.*    Springfield,  Mass. 

184.  1869.   Duplicate  of  H.  W.  Longfellow.*    New  York. 

185.  1869.   Bust  of  Rev.  Dr.  Lothrop.*    Boston. 

186.  1869.   Bust  of  Hon.  Samuel  Hooper.*    Boston. 

187.  1869.  Bust  of  Chief-Justice  Chase.*    Boston. 

188.  1870.   Duplicate  bust  of  Nathaniel  Thayer.*    Boston. 

14&  1870.  Bust    of    General     Thompson.*      Warren     Academy. 
Woburn. 

190.  1870.   Study  for  head  of  the  Nymph. 

191.  1870.   Statue  of  the  Nymph  of  the  Ocean.    Wellesley  College. 

192.  1871.   Medallion  of  head  of  Alvin  Adams.*    Watertown.    Mrs. 

Waldo  Adams.     Boston. 

193.  1871.   Bust  of  A.  K.  P.  Welch.*    Cambridge. 

194.  1871.   Duplicate  bust   of    Gen.    Theodore    Lyman.*     Lyman 

School.    Boston. 

195.  Bust    of    Rev.    Dr.    Blagden.*      Boston.     Old    South 

Church. 

196.  Bust  of  Rev.  Dr.  Kirk.*    Boston.    Mt.  Vernon  Church. 

197.  Bust  of  Dr.  Andrew  Peabody.*    Cambridge. 

198.  Bust  of  A.  A.  Lawrence.*    Longwood. 

199.  Bust  of  Mr.  Taylor  *  of  the  firm  of  Hogg,  Brown,  and 

Taylor,  Boston.     This  was  his  last  work. 


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